Six Feet Under (Buried Deep Alive)
by SashaLikaMusica
Summary: Skips from POV to POV, but is mainly focused on Baby Doll. Slight AU. Rated M because it's a little dark to be T Disclaimer: I don't own it, peeps. Trigger warning: mentions and graphic descriptions of the effects of mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, mild violence, and mentions of rape (which, by the way, I consider the most heinous crime in the entire universe).
1. Chapter 1

It was a lovely June morning. All colors of the world seemed brighter and more vibrant than usual. The sun shone with unusual brilliance upon the bright green grass, and the sky was a particularly vivid shade of blue that reflected cheerfully in the lake. Of course, it could hardly be called a lake; no larger than a small pond, it was.

An old Saint Bernard, big and blundering, lay happily dozing in a patch of sunlight. Its head rested contentedly on its paws, ears spread out flat on the wood floor of the small log cabin. Bowser was his name, and he was eight years old, just the age when dogs begin to tire of everything but bones and quiet, peaceful seclusion. Cat chases are forgotten, abundant energy relinquished, and they retire to sleeping in the cool breeze of a light summer's day.

A young girl reclined in the grass, a fluffy orange cat in her lap. Crookie, as the girl had always called him, was also scruffy-faced and weary. Gone were the days of scampering through the woods on nimble, sprightly paws; no more were the adventures that had befallen him in the lofty corners of the little barn. He was old, and preferred to spend the last years of his life resting his arthritic feet and slowly stalking the occasional mouse which happened by on accident.

The girl remained the only one of this peaceful little group who was not beginning to feel the efforts and burdens of old age. She knew not elderly pain, but instead the lingering brightness of a dimming childhood. Eighteen was not an age that she admired; she wished to always remain a child, running through the shallows of the lake, scaling saplings, and snacking on the falls from apple trees. She was one of those wise children who chose to prolong her years of fun and games whilst knowing in her heart that each new tree she climbed drew her closer to the last tree she climbed.

On this pleasant summer day, she slept, enjoying the sunlight and the light wind that ruffled her yellow hair. Her bright blue eyes were closed; her long lashes spread like fans. Her long pale hands lay folded over the fur of Crookie, who also slept. As a dream twitched in her face, a clear voice sailed out of the cottage, drifted over the breeze, gliding, floating, flowing.

"Alice, Alice . . ."


	2. Alice (The Towel-Keeping Place)

_I lost everyone I ever loved, and then they locked me away, with nowhere to hide from the pain._

On the day her world ended, she was still asleep.

Silence is associated with sleep. And as is so with sleep, silence can have many traits. Sleep can be deep and restful, or it can be uneasy, full of disturbing dreams. When sleep is grim, silence is as well, for silence is a strange thing, unnatural. If you were to blindfold a person and take them deep into a dense forest, they would not declare it silent. In nature, there is always movement.

The girl in the long black sedan had experienced many quiet moments in her lifetime. Although there had been several of which her memory was pleasant, they had more often than not been tense and apprehensive. The memories she had of darkness and shadows eclipsed those of friendly light. It was this particular slew of recollections that came back to haunt her now.

In her eyes was blackness, the cold kind. Her mind was a dark, glacially icy room with a burnt out candle and not a match to be found. Within the dark flashed images, blurred and troubling. One memory faded into the next, disturbed and then forgotten again. Each recollection brought on another wave of pain. Anguish seized her in its ice-cold hands, holding her captive. She struggled to break free, writhing in the chilling grasp.

"Baby Doll," said a voice. The sound drifted melodiously through her haze of pain. "Baby Doll, wake up." The girl twisted frantically on the haughty, cold leather seat, struggling. Her hands sought the seatbelt, clasping it tightly in an effort to get loose. Something hard knocked into the side of her head. She moaned, still squirming; a pair of cool hands took her wrists in their strong grasp, holding down the trashing girl.

"Baby Doll, wake up. You are safe." Abruptly the girl awoke, staring straight ahead of her with anguished eyes, seeing beyond reality into a world of unknown existence. Slowly her head turned, and her large, pale eyes gazed straight through the woman sitting patiently beside her. Her expression was afraid, terrified even.

Her colorless lips moved slowly, framing a barely audible whisper. The quiet voice was high, young, and anxious. Her face muscles were tense, alarmed, and her eyes were wild. She looked like a cornered animal cowering alone and defenseless. Her soft voice was uneasy.

"Where am I?" she asked in a whisper, and even the question seemed disconnected, as if there was nothing behind it, as if someone else was controlling her thoughts. The older woman looked straight into the teenager's wild eyes, hoping to see something there. All she saw was emptiness bare of consciousness. She was still holding the girl's wrists. Baby Doll looked down at the hands that encircled her pale arms and then looked back up, a small amount of awareness returning to her.

"Let go," she flatly requested in a hoarse, dry whisper. Even her plea had no expression. The moment she spoke, her falsetto voice was gone, sucked away by the air itself. It could not stay, for it had not been truly there. It was as if she had never spoken. It had been there for no longer than a second, and then it was gone.

The woman released the shaking hands she held. They dropped limply into the girl's lap, as if she did not quite know what to do with them. Baby Doll stared blankly into the woman's green eyes. Moments passed without a blink. The older woman wondered rather childishly how the girl could possibly go that long with relieving her dry eyes. Then she noticed the tears that threatened to spill over the long lashes.

Slowly, hesitantly, she lifted a hand to wipe them away. Baby Doll, she knew, would simply let them fall, not knowing or caring about the wet spots on her shirt. Perhaps she did not even notice them. Her senses appeared to be permanently absent; she gave no response to the loud crack of thunder outside.

"Baby Doll," the woman said, smiling as if to a toddler, "you are safe here. Isn't that what matters?" For a moment, it was as if Baby Doll had not even heard her. The impassiveness of her expression did not waver, and her eyes remained unfocused. But at last she blinked once, nodding her head lethargically.

The elder, seeing that there was nothing more that she could do, settled back in her seat with a resounding sigh of defeat. She was weary of the younger girl's company, and was glad that she would be well rid of her by the end of the night. Her thick black hair, so carefully curled only just that morning, was lank and felt lifeless. She had wound it into an elegant twist on top of her head with the halfhearted hope that it would last throughout the day. This attempt had failed miserably, and she was nursing the fact that her heavy layer of makeup had smudged off.

For Baby Doll, she had made little preparation. After dressing the deadpan girl in a knee-length black skirt and a salmon-pink blouse with ruffled sleeves, she had made a feeble attempt to struggle with Baby Doll's long, white-blonde waves. Having washed said loose locks the night before, the woman had tied them into the girl's signature pigtails with a weak, ineffective plea to keep them neat; though Baby Doll's original hairdo was still present, it was messy; the short layers in front were free and touching the corners of her eyes.

Lila Vance thought it a great disgrace to be in the company of such a person. It was true that Baby Doll was not to be put at fault, but Ms. Vance had spent nearly thirty years in the presence of children. To her, Baby Doll was just another nameless orphan. And even at that, she was not like the others. Tales generated by the older women claimed that she had been to over fifteen orphanages and institutes of various sorts, never remaining in one for longer than a year or two.

At age four, it was said that her mother had died. Attempts had been made to trace her father, who had been declared missing two years previously. When no father and indeed no relations of any sort were found, she had been sent to the first orphanage. Ostensibly she had been moved to the second home within a matter of weeks.

Each establishment had found something odd about her. She was strange, they said, withdrawn. She hardly spoke, and when she did she was strangely determined. She seemed unable to participate in regular activities, and her movements lacked deliberation. Ordinary objects would inexplicably frighten her, and vice versa. One school declared that she had a tendency to gravitate towards dangerous things that were made all the more hazardous by her condition.

Ms. Vance, the head of Baby Doll's last school, had given up. Baby Doll was shifting hands yet again, this time towards complete incarceration and control. From what she had heard, Ms. Vance had only one theory regarding the girl, and the present's car ride was the transitory result. Baby Doll was headed to Lennox House.

The sedan jerked to a sudden halt. Without the roar of the engine as a mask, Ms. Vance could hear the pounding of pouring rain against the car windows. She groaned inwardly, wondering if the day could possibly get any worse. The very last thing she wanted to do was walk through a downpour. Baby Doll, on the other hand, seemed completely unaware of the howling torrent. She was thinking. Most thought her incapable of such a feat, but the fact was that she did think; she simply did not share her thoughts.

Baby Doll had learned to not disclose her ideas to others. People, she had discovered, fiercely defended what they believed, and if someone's beliefs were different, then the defender decided that they must be wrong. No belief besides one's own could exist, it seemed, and Baby Doll's thoughts were quite different from other those of other people. Therefore they were wrong.

She knew that she saw things, heard things, and even experienced things that others did not. Did that mean that her thoughts were wrong? She did not know. For all she knew, everyone else's thoughts could be wrong, and hers could be right. But there was one thing that stung: the other girls teased her for it. Either that or they avoided her completely. The fact that people pegged her as different made coping with her abnormality even more difficult.

And when it came to getting attached to people, there was no point. People would be drawn to her by her pretty hair and innocent face, but it would not take them long to realize that the girl they saw before them had little resemblance to the girl underneath. For the past eleven years she had had no one. But truthfully, if she thought back far enough, she was in the same predicament that she always had been in.

Baby Doll sighed, an uncommon display of emotion, and stared blankly out of the rain-streaked window into the darkness of the stormy night. She gazed into the dusk unseeing. Visions recalled from her dreams swam in her vision, and she was nearly sucked again from reality. In the haze, she felt herself growing drowsier.

But then something abruptly made her look harder. She squinted into the rain, creating herself a colossal headache; it was rare for her to use her head in such a way. Lost in her strange visions, she was accustomed to entertaining unfocused eyes. When she at last made use of them after long periods of redundancy, it hurt her head. But she was not so out of practice that she could not see something outside coming towards the car. It was a blurry form, hidden by the rain.

After the passing of several moments, the blur solidified into three men. They approached the car, and Baby Doll noticed that they all possessed a uniformly attire. It was only when they were mere feet away that she was able to see clearly; such was the heaviness of the rain shower. The trio wore identical white pants and polo shirts, the latter tucked in to the former in an alarmingly professional manner.

The three men stood beside the vehicle, discussing something in low, serious tones. Then, to her surprise and fright, her door was yanked open and a pair of hands pulled her from her seat. Unaccustomed to being handled in such a way, Baby Doll did nothing to protest. Never in her small existing memory had she been moved so forcefully by another's hands, and so did not quite know what action to take.

The rain, cascading relentlessly from the sky, had her soaked within an instant. She shivered instinctively, though rain was not an unusual thing in her mind. Many a time had she been left outside in a storm, not hearing the call to cover and having no acknowledged inclination to seek shelter. When this happened she would remain in the deluge for possibly hours before anyone noticed her absence.

Startled, Baby Doll looked up into the faces of three middle-aged men. Their expressions were stern and professional. A fourth man was standing on the other side of the car, speaking into Ms. Vance's window. A moment later he joined them, and the car started up again. Ms. Vance rode off, thankful to be rid of the girl and pleased that she had not been forced to get wet, contrary to her fears.

The four men continued to hold Baby Doll firmly by the arms. Wild, untamed thoughts flew through her head. Strange, frightening memories flooded her mind, conjuring up nonexistent realities. She was momentarily, terrifyingly surrounded by a pack of large wolves that growled and viciously bared their teeth. Frightened and having no other alternative, she reacted as a captured animal might.

Baby Doll slammed into two of the men with her shoulders, knocking them off balance. They held a firm grip. Then the wolf pack changed into four faceless wisps of smoky air. Baby Doll knew that she could get away from them. Tensing her leg muscles, she ran as if to burst through the smoke and came into contact with something hard.

The vision fading, she found that she had run into one of her guards, striking him down. The man, tall and burly, lifted himself angrily from the ground. Stepping right into Baby Doll's face, he glared at her. Growing weary from the irregular use of her eyes, Baby Doll regressed again to her vacant stare. The man did not see this as an adequate response. Perhaps he had been anticipating an apology, for suddenly he grabbed her wrist, twisting her arm. Baby Doll let out an injured cry, and one of the men spoke.

"Easy Blue, don't hurt her," he warned, "she doesn't know what she's doing. Remember why she's here." He had a slow, deep voice that soothed the fearful girl. It was the most calming thing she had heard all day. The other, Blue, scowled angrily.

"She knocked me over, Wilmarth, what would you have done?" he demanded crossly. The man called Wilmarth shrugged; a lapse in his authorative manner, and the four of them began walking Baby Doll along a path, still holding her arms in vice-like grips.

As they walked up the gravel path, evidently climbing a hill of sorts, the visions returned. There were petrifying sea urchins spread far and wide upon the bare slope. Baby Doll flinched, expecting an attack, and was gripped even tighter in response to her actions. At a closer look through the now-lightening rainfall, the shapes were revealed to be old, gnarled trees that were leafless during the present season.

Shuddering, Baby Doll closed her eyes, allowing her feet to drag inside her scuffed black shoes. She felt the grime from the wet stones soak through her socks as she stumbled along. Keeping her eyes tightly shut, she sifted through her memory. It was a drill that she had been taught years ago to put her mind through in times of distress to ward of illusions. If she could discover an instant of truth in her mind and focus on it completely, it would take all of her concentration.

Searching her mind deliberately, she scrutinized what she could clearly remember of the past ten minutes. Going back to the time when the sedan had halted at the bottom of the hill, she recalled seeing a sign above a vast iron gate. The gate, if her memory was correct, was set in the center of a tall metal fence, on top of which sat curls of barbed wire. The gate had large, curly letters across the top. With her strength ebbing away, even when she focused with all her might, she could not remember the words the metal had formed.

Even this small, meaningless recollection took such effort that nearly a minute of Baby Doll's time had gone by unnoticed. She had not been aware of anything but what was inside her fiercely complex mind when she had passed through the heavy wooden doors and entered the towering building. Now, brought to a standstill by her uniformed guard, she took in the vague impression of her surroundings with somnolent eyes.

She was in a room so cavernous that she felt it must be at least twelve stories high. It was in the shape of a square, and empty save a group of about twenty iron desks situated in pristine rows in the center. Both the pillared walls and the tile of the floor were colored the sickly green that the girl associated with hospitals. It was almost the only tint the room had; the desks were a rusty metal color.

It was not these things, however, that unnerved the drowsy girl. In fact the color, arrangement, and even the size of the room made little impress upon her. It was the group of twelve or so girls dressed in drab, wrinkly clothes that unsettled her most. Baby Doll, using her last ounce of concentration and energy, looked at the girls. All of them had the pale, stringy, unhealthy look of someone who hadn't seen sunshine in a great while.

"Sweet Pea," a voice called out, making Baby Doll jump. Blue, the man whom Baby Doll had accidentally knocked over, had spoken right in the girl's ear. "Do come here, sweetheart." Baby Doll heard the charismatic tone, and watched as one of the few girls who had remained seated threw down her pencil, pushed her chair back with a squeal of metal upon tile, and strode crossly over to join the group.

"What do you want, Blue?" she asked in an irate tone. Her voice was alto, reasonable in its objectives, and erudite. She was tall, with straight, shoulder-length strawberry blonde hair that seemed dull in the green-tinted light. She had a bored, irritated expression, as if she had gone through this altogether too many times before. Blue smiled drily beneath his mustache.

"Don't be like that, sugar. You _know_ what happens when I'm upset," he slated in a crooning tone of the sort used while scolding very small children. "I was going to ask you a favor . . . no, no," he chuckled as the girl started to grimace disgustedly, "it's not like that. I was wondering if you'd show the new girl around for me." Baby Doll caught the emphasis he put on the word _me, _and shuddered. The girl, further peeved by his charming murmurs, spoke sharply.

"Blue, I'm working with the girls right now, I don't have time! I'll get Rocket to do it; she's having too much fun, anyway." As she uttered this sentence, Sweet Pea glanced across the room at a slightly shorter, athletic looking girl with hair the same shade as her own worn in a ragged pixie cut. She was sitting at a desk with another girl, giggling as she drew large swirls on the tabletop with her pencil.

"Rocket!" the elder girl summoned, "You can stop amusing Amber for a while; Blue has a job for you!" The laughing girl immediately looked up, and her lighthearted noisemaking ceased at once. The gleeful expression on her boyish face turned to angst as she registered what had been said. She stood, letting out a rueful sigh as she did so, and procrastinated her way across the room. Reaching the small crowd, she came to a nervous stop at Sweet Pea's side.

"Yes?" she asked apprehensively, directing the inquiry at Sweet Pea rather than the men. Sweet Pea gestured towards Baby Doll, who was by this point swaying on her feet as a result of her exhaustion.

"Show the girl around the place, okay?" Rocket's mood immediately lightened, and she returned the other's smile as she entered the throng, beckoning to Baby Doll. Blue and the rest of the guards hesitated before handing the weary girl over to the enthusiastic one, but eventually complied. Baby Doll was currently senseless. Exhaustion to the extreme combined with her unstable condition had taken a toll on her, and she now felt a tingling numbness spreading gradually through her body.

"Come," said the laughing girl, beckoning with her hand to the younger child, the strange one who stood so still with a politely puzzled look upon her face. When the confused one gave no response, Rocket laughed softly, her high soprano trill resounding musically in Baby Doll's ears. "Come on, I don't bite very hard," she teased, keeping her voice quiet so that the men would not hear her.

The sound of the voice was odd to Baby Doll's ears. It vibrated, shaking her numb body painfully. It gave her a peculiar, frightened feeling. After years of living mindlessly, she had learned to identify all that she possibly could within something. In this laugh, she found pain.

A forgotten memory resurfaced, drawing the humor away from the harmony and turning it to anxiety. The silky falsetto turned to a shrill, hysterical whine. Baby Doll was sucked abruptly into an uptight reminiscence where she was greeted with distress and given the feeling that she had been there before. A nightmare came back to haunt her, a bad dream relived in wakefulness.

Damp ground, tinted algae-green, absorbed the pounding of frantic footsteps. Trees, their low, draping branches coated in spongy moss, hid the grey sky. A dense fog filled every corner of the swamp, snatching reality away and replacing it with horror. No birds sang, hence the eerie silence. This silence was from a nightmare.

Footsteps beat upon the wet, muddy dirt, running hard. As the draping trees flew by, Baby Doll squeezed her eyes closed, tightly and effectively shutting out the horror of the world. Clammy was the hand that she dragged along behind. Rocket's voice entered the nightmare, crying out in dread.

"I can't _go _any faster; Baby Doll, he'll catch us!" wailed the owner of the hand. The cry was piercing, panicky. Each syllable held a new, stronger note of fear. Baby Doll, terrified by this one moment of truth, gave the hand a sharp tug. Her feet slipped in the muck.

"Run, just run!" she screamed, desperate to the point of hysteria. Her knee-length, short-sleeved dress matched the haze-dulled moss perfectly. Her hair, in long, loose pigtails, flew out behind her as she sprinted through the marsh, dragging with her the freezing hand, the only thing she had left to hold.

Time had no meaning to her as she crashed through the undergrowth. She worried about her speed. She was not afraid that she would be caught. Caught, imprisoned, locked away. She was anxious only for the hand she held, that she would not be fast enough to save it, and that he would tear it away from her forever. She could not let him do that to either of them.

Someone ran behind her, catching up with each stride he took. Baby Doll could hear him, breathing normally as she ran without air. But she was not concerned with that. She could only run harder, faster, as she tried with her last ounce of strength to save someone she loved. She no longer cared about herself.

And then, suddenly, she felt the hand wrenched from her grasp and heard the scream, loud and strident. It filled her ears, seized her head with an awful vibration. It hurt her, that sound. It was not someone else's pain but her pain, no one else's fear but her fear. Because she had not been fast enough. She heard the shriek, the frantic cry for help.

"Baby Doll! Baby Doll!" The sound was getting farther away, leaving her behind. She ran frantically in the direction of the scream, calling back, assuring it that help was near, that she was coming. She didn't stop to think about what she would find when she finally reached it, what she would have to face.

"I'm coming! I'm coming, stay right there!" she shouted back, moving faster than she ever had. But of course it didn't stay. She didn't stay. And with each step he took she was growing farther and farther away . . .

"Baby Doll!" came the distressed cry. And then a whimper. Baby Doll burst into a small clearing, looking around wildly through the fog. She was close now. Yes, there she was, standing straight up with a terrified expression frozen on her face. Alone, unprotected, petrified. Baby Doll stopped, glancing about her warily. She took a tentative step, and then the laugh stopped her.

It was low, cold, and grimly amused. It was more of an evil chuckle, the sort of laugh that one would hear in a horror movie. It was the kind of laugh always heard when something terrible is about to happen. It was the sound that came before something awful, horrific, a nightmare.

The eleven year old stood frozen, her long brown hair free of the moss that had earlier tangled it. Her thin face, chalk-white, was a perfect carving out of ice, except for the eyes . . . wide brown eyes peeked out from under long, thick lashes, begging for help. Her lips were blood red, and her eyebrows, dark and perfectly shaped, were stuck in the anxious position they were in while she slept. Slowly, robotically, she raised her arms as if to embrace someone as she stared straight through Baby Doll. The laugh came again.

"Go, Baby Doll, go to her," it hissed, smooth, cold, and hard as ice. A man stepped out from the circle of trees. His dark clothes struck him out, made his figure sharp and prominent. His face, angular and twisted into a threatening smile, was dangerous. His eyes were cold and black and spoke of a danger too large for comprehension.

"What did you do to her?" Baby Doll asked, her voice wrought with dread. The little accusation she had managed to summon up had been buried in her fear. What had he done to her, this man? What was wrong with her? Why was she not responding as she should?

"I did nothing. She's fine. Go to her," he whispered, stepping forward. Towering over her by several heads, he laid a hand on the girl's shoulder. She didn't seem to feel his touch, and continued to stare straight at Baby Doll with wide, frightened eyes. He, too, gazed at her with a thoughtful expression.

Baby Doll could not hear, could not think. All she saw was the girl, so small and helpless, stretching out her arms, pleading for help. The man stood beside her, one hand on her shoulder, capable of overpowering them both in a second. And there was nothing she could do, for she knew that the moment she lunged for the girl, the man would do something horrible. She did not know what he would do, only that it would be the worst thing imaginable.

"You're leaving her? Pity," he said softly, his tone filled with false regret. "Then I guess she'll just have to come with me . . ." Baby Doll watched in horror.

She saw the outstretched arms, the ruby lips moving as they spoke her name, and then she watched helplessly as her little sister vanished forever into the mist.

"So your name is Baby Doll, is it? Funny, although I've never quite gotten over being named after a plant." The sentence, making no sense whatsoever, broke into the nightmarish memory that was terribly real. A chill shot through her, and her lashes flew open as she took in a sharp breath.

Around her she saw not even the slightest sign of the swamp where her sister had been torn away from her. The laughing girl was speaking again. Dead to the world, Baby Doll felt herself responding automatically through her delirium as the girl called Rocket took her by the hand and drew her from the crowd.

She was distantly aware of her exit from the room and the beginning of her trek down a dimly lit, red-carpeted corridor with a low ceiling. This was such an alteration from the setup of the first room that Baby Doll grew steadily more confused. She was still shaken from her dream. Rocket, however, seemed oblivious of this. She chattered on, leading Baby Doll down a befuddling maze of corridors.

"Did you see that man? That's Blue Clark. He's the head of this whole shenanigans; don't ever make him mad. He's got a thing for Sweet Pea; she hates him for it. Sweet Pea is my sister, you know, two years older. I wish I were the older one," she said wistfully, prattling on in her high, sweet voice, unaware of her companion's bewildered silence. A mollified aura of disorientation hung suspended in the air, hovering without explanation.

They continued down the corridor, one leading the other. Baby Doll followed silently, staring straight ahead, not seeing or hearing anything that her guide was saying. Fatigue had triggered a fuzzy sort of half-consciousness in her; her light eyes remained open, but glazed by their lack of use. The world before her was fading, smudging, misting into nothingness. Her vision was turning paler; sight was losing color so that nothing remained to be distinguished.

At last Rocket brought their meandering to a pause, stopping before one of the hallway's many polished oak doors. Pushing it open with a squeak of unoiled hinges, she held it ajar and motioned for Baby Doll to enter the dark room. The latter could make no sense of the dim movement of her escort, and, seeing no other option, stood motionless with empty eyes. Rocket, sensing that there was something odd about this new girl, put a light hand on her arm and guided her through the doorway.

"This is the laundry room," she told Baby Doll, flicking on an overhead light with inadvertent ferocity. The white brightness revealed ten stacked washer-dryers lined impeccably against the green wall, five on each side. The floor was constructed of tiles identical to those in the large room. A single wicker chair stood in a corner. Rocket strode over to a large closet on the west side of the room.

"This is where towels are kept. You can come here any time to get one, but make sure you ask permission first – Blue doesn't like us wandering around, thinks we'll get lost," she instructed whilst grinning impishly, opening the door so that Baby Doll might view the cupboard's contents. The blonde-haired girl gave no response; her eyes had shifted from glassy to being crossed, and she was finding it impossible to ward off another headache let alone focus on the stranger's instructions.

Despondent comprehension filled Rocket's face, and she sat down without a word on the edge of the chair. She sighed, regarding the senseless Baby Doll with a helpless expression. She was suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling of despair. Being compassionate, it was difficult to endure life among those who didn't seem to know of their existence. Sadness filled her heart whenever she thought of them and how much they were missing in their lives, how nothing had meaning to them except for the surreal worlds that they dreamed up.

"You can't hear me, can you?" she asked Baby Doll with a small, sad smile on her lips, shaking her head slightly as if she already knew the answer. Baby Doll's response, or lack thereof, clinched her belief and deepened the meaning of that smile. "I'm sorry," she said softly, quietly sympathetic, and though she knew that she would receive no response she continued to speak aloud, murmuring softly to herself about the pains of the life she led.

Rocket's belief was that people such as Baby Doll were not completely out of their heads. She had decided years ago that the sane, human part of them still existed, buried somewhere deep within them. Perhaps that part of them would show, appearing uncalled, and then quickly slip away again. It was a wild hope, perhaps even a little insane itself, but it was all she had.

Baby Doll was swaying very slowly from side to side, her eyes now closed against the blur that reality had become. She was too exhausted now to even move, and had begun to devote herself entirely to suppressing hallucinations. Rocket, accustomed to seeing this strange sort of concentration, stood quickly and put an arm around Baby Doll's waist, supporting her the rest of the way to her new room. It was only after she had settled Baby Doll in an empty bed and was nearly asleep herself when she remembered that she had forgotten to turn off the laundry room light.


	3. Barbed Wire

_It was hard, in the beginning, to focus. I could not tell what was real and what was not. Dreams were reality, and reality was a dream. But then they came, those rare flashes of sanity. They did not indicate consciousness in my mind, but others could see some sunlight. I was still in the dark, not knowing that there was some hope for me after all. _

In the fading light of the late-summer evening three figures hurtled down the hillside, carefully avoiding contact with the widespread old apple trees. The leaves were just beginning to change and sail lightly to the ground, signifying the start of autumn. On these they slipped, skittering down the steep slope. Sadie Marsh ran after them, slipping as well and shouting angrily.

"Girls, get back up here this _instant!_" she yelled, inwardly cursing the runaways. Rocket, panting hard, stopped and braced her hands against her knees for support. Having spent very little time outdoors in the past decade, running was low on her list of abilities. Behind her, however, were two people who had never run at all. A shriek alerted her to Amber's misfortune. Turning her head back to look, she saw the brown-haired girl lying in a heap in the fallen leaves.

"Amber, get up a tree!" she advised. "Baby Doll, come here!" The third girl came tumbling down the slope, flopping like a rag doll. When her fall came to an end at Rocket's feet, she lay still for a moment as if unsure what to do, and then sat up inquiringly, wondering if she had done the right thing. Rocket gave her a nod of approval.

Three years with Rocket had proved beneficial for Baby Doll. She would respond to commands, and occasionally showed a limited ability to think for herself. Intermittently there would be a moment when Rocket could sense that she was almost there with them. It would always be something small, an instant when her eyes were clear, a deliberate movement, or even a sentence that made more sense than it should, as if she had been holding it in for years, editing it and revising it until the time came for her to speak.

"Climb," Rocket instructed, patting her hand against the rough bark of the tree beside her. Baby Doll looked Rocket up and down. The tree received identical scrutiny. At last she scrambled unsteadily to her feet, grasped a limb, and at a nod from the older girl hoisted herself onto a low branch. Looking down at the ground, her vision swam, and she quickly shut her eyes. Leaning against the scratchy trunk, she took slow, deep breaths.

"Baby Doll, are you all right?" Rocket's concerned voice asked from below. Baby Doll groaned softly, clutching her branch tightly.

"Dizzy," she murmured, for while it took those rare seconds of sanity for her to speak more than a few words, she was not entirely incapable of talking. Most people are under the impression that human beings dubbed "insane" are literally unable to entertain even the slightest hint of a normal thought. The word _insane _brings on the assumption that the person cannot think about, speak of, hear, or see anything like what we do. They are sadly mistaken.

Baby Doll, while not quite right in her mind, was quite capable of thinking and seeing. What she saw and thought was different, but difference is only in accordance to how our brains work. What she thought, she believed, and what she saw, she believed. She knew in some small corner of her mind that some things weren't real, but she did not know which thoughts were real and which were not. And it was true that times existed when she was not entirely sure of things.

Seated upon the hard branch of the apple tree, hidden by the autumn leaves, Baby Doll was not precisely certain where she was. She had the dim knowledge that she was sitting upon something hard, and also that someone was chasing her. Who they were and why she was being pursued were both unanswerable questions. Sadie's voice drifted through the air on a light breeze, muffled like bees trapped in a jar.

"Girls, if you don't get back up here right now I'm getting Blue," she threatened loudly, forced to shout over the sound of the wind that was all that could be heard. Silence, nervous and secretive, filled the chilly air. The urge of impatience the evening held was almost tangible.

Risking vertigo, a glance in the direction of the asylum from Baby Doll was apprehensive behind the glaze of her eyes. Sadie's short, stocky figure was visible through a gap in the red and gold leaves. She stood straight, her feet planted firmly apart, as she waited in vain for a response. Her long, mud brown hair blew into her face, obscuring her vision and slightly marring the little amount of an authorative appearance she had managed to obtain over years of practice.

"I'm getting Blue," Sadie stated, her singsong tone lingering on to pester the girls. Defeated, Rocket sighed and jumped down from her tree. Her bare feet crackled in the leaves, stirring up the earthy smell of dry autumn.

"Wait!" she yelled up the hill, "Sadie, down here." An arm still waving in a gesture of surrender, Rocket motioned for the other two to desert their posts. The sudden change of plans baffled Baby Doll, and she remained seated upon her branch, awaiting further instructions. The hill, Rocket, and even the tree upon which she was situated turned abruptly into a thick fog. She could make sense of nothing, and held on tightly to a solitary leaf. Through the fog, a voice spoke to her.

"Baby, come on down. It's okay; Sadie says the game is over. We have to go back inside now." The voice, familiar to Baby Doll, broke through the fog, thinning it a little; a call from reality summoning her back. She tensed, squeezing the leaf tighter, and felt it begin to rip in her fingers. She wanted to do as the voice said, but she didn't know if she could. The fog was too thick to move through.

"Baby Doll, move. Jump down." Jump down? But it was so far. The fog had no bottom; if she jumped, she would just keep flying through space, forever and forever. "Baby Doll, _move. Jump,_" the voice commanded. Baby Doll drew in a deep breath, surprised when she did not inhale the fog. Nervously she scooted forward until she was barely on the limb.

With a last, tense huff she slid off, tearing the leaf away from its stem. The mist vanished as she fell, and she hit the ground hard with her knees. She threw out her hands instinctively to break her fall, and felt the leaf wrenched from her grasp and saw it go flying. Leaping to her feet and snatching at the air with a sudden blaze of energy, she cried out loudly.

"No!" She lunged, throwing herself at it. She stumbled on a tree root and nearly fell. Closing her eyes, she waited for the pain of the impact, assuming with her childish mind that if she could not see the ground, she would not come into contact with it. While nearly an adult, Baby Doll's mind remained as that of a six-year-old child, and for her the trip, tumble, and collision was similar to a baby's game of hide and seek – closing her eyes to avoid being seen, because wasn't she the only one who could see?

However, childish plays existed for her no longer in reality. Though in a way they did – playing foolish games to occupy her wild thoughts – Baby Doll knew somehow that what she was doing would not suffice. Blindness did not equal safety. This fact was evident, for just as she was about to hit the hard earth, strong arms snaked around her, jerking her upright. When she had caught her balance, they remained tightly wrapped around her as she struggled. A soothing voice murmured in her ear.

"Baby Doll, Baby Doll, it's all right. It's just a leaf. Let it go," Rocket whispered, her breath hot in Baby Doll's ear. "Baby Doll, let it go. It wants to be free; let it fly far, far away." Baby Doll stopped squirming and looked with difficulty over her shoulder, eyeing Rocket's earnest expression suspiciously.

"Away," she repeated, the word fading with her voice. Her eyes took on that reflective quality as she repeated the word childishly within the mind that was still frozen at a toddler's level. _Away. _Where was away? It couldn't be anywhere, for if you ever reached what you thought to be _away, _it would be in a different place. You could never find away. It didn't exist. It would always be just a little farther, well, _away_.

An authorative figure by the name of Sadie Watkins had by this time reached the pair with a struggling Amber in tow. It was frequently speculated, the subject of Amber's cognizance, and occasionally doubted. Amber, a short, brown-eyed girl, was ingenious and obstinate and would often show proficiency for thinking outside of the box. However, as with many of the girls at Lippincott House, there were those rare moments when her sanity was questionable.

"Let me go, pig!" Amber demanded in a scowling voice. Sadie gave the girl a long and deeply mistrustful look before releasing her shoulder with a shove. "Thank you," Amber snarled, rubbing said injured shoulder resentfully. Sadie spared her a curt nod and then turned to view the remainder of the scene. It was with a weary expression that she took in Baby Doll's wild eyes and Rocket's restraining arms. She raised an eyebrow in vexation.

"She's lost herself again, has she?" she asked, though the inquiry had hardly a purpose. Rocket bobbed her head mutely, her arms continuing to form a confining cage around Baby Doll. Sadie exhaled heavily, running a hand through her hair. "I'll tell you what, Rocket," she began, a sure indication of a bargain. "You get her safely back into the building, and I'll let you off this one time. I haven't the patience for struggles today." Rocket grinned broadly and immediately started to pull a catatonic Baby Doll up the hill.

"The same won't be said for you, young lady," Sadie said ominously, catching Amber by the hair as she made a futile attempt to follow the other two. "_You _are going to see Blue." Amber, scowling sulkily, let out a pleading moan. Visits with Blue were never quite balanced. Arguments always ended up in his favor . . . one way or another.

The flight of the leaf had knocked a spot of rare sense back into Baby Doll. Something had happened to her as she had watched the leaf's valiant escape. Suddenly, everything became clear before her eyes. Objects normally blurred sharpened into clearer focus, alighting memories of moments such as this. For she could only remember reality when one of these memories was in the making.

As they trooped down the corridor and up the stairs to the third floor, she startled Rocket with a coherent, intelligent sentence. These sudden outbursts of sanity were steadily becoming more frequent, Rocket noted. What this could mean was a mystery to her, but she understood that something was happening to Baby Doll. It was as if her mind were returning to her, little by little.

"Rocket, do you think I'll ever be free?" Baby Doll requested Rocket's opinion in a soft voice. Her voice was tame; it held no hint of the wildness that had overcome her on the hillside. Rocket, though admittedly rather surprised, answered as best she could. It was best to keep the conversation going for as long as was possible. These bouts of awareness came so rarely that, to Rocket in any case, they were a precious gift.

"I don't know, Baby Doll," she admitted, and then quickly added, "I hope so," as if making up for the monotone quality of her response. Opening the door to their room without a command, Baby Doll squared her shoulders, lifting her small chin. For the first time ever, Rocket saw the suggestion of a rebellious glint her light, lost eyes.

"Well, I'm_ going_ to," she stated confidently in a sudden surge of determination, entering the large room. This room, their bedroom, had many similarities regarding the big room downstairs. Three rows of small, iron-framed beds with plain white sheets, the center row set between large pillars, filled the long chamber. With the sickly green tinge glowing in the darkness, the light cast by several bedside lamps, it was easy to see just how drab it was. Nothing homey, nothing that made up a person's life, existed in that room.

A tall, slender figure with a piercing stare, changed very little over the past three years, was one of the few with a lighted lamp. She was sitting up straight on her bed on the left side of the room, holding one of the rare items called a book. Lippincott House having no library, she had been forced to smuggle one in when she first arrived. She set down Pride and Prejudice when Rocket and Baby Doll entered, keeping it spread open in her lap.

"What are you going to do?" Sweet Pea asked suspiciously, regarding the two girls with mature eyes. Had it not been the only thing that allowed her to stay at Lippincott House, Sweet Pea would have deserted her position as an older sister. She loved Rocket, the only remaining member of her family, but had long ago begun wishing that she could begin her journey through the world.

Baby Doll, her ambitions suddenly known to her, sat down two beds away from Sweet Pea. She was unsure of the reason for her abrupt awareness, and was undecided when the subject shifted to trust. Could she confide in this strange occurrence that was already much more than strange? She had learned long ago that nothing was to be trusted, and it had hardly occurred to her that this simple fact was a lie.

"I'm going to escape from here," she said calmly, unblinkingly, but with determination. Rocket realized that this was the longest time in which she had ever seen Baby Doll fully awake. Sweet Pea's eyebrows shot up, and she looked around quickly to be sure that no one had heard. With the exception of one vacantly staring girl, the entire occupation of the room was at rest. Dreams were the only way to escape their painful realities, and so they slept.

A confusing thought had just crossed Baby Doll's mind, and it had to do with lies. Could parts of her life be lies? Could her entire existence be nothing more than a fabrication? What if – was it possible? – what if she didn't even exist? But then what? Her thinking was foolish, she realized; she brought herself back to reality with a start.

Confused and slightly fretful, Baby Doll watched Sweet Pea sedately, serenely tucking her legs under her as Rocket flopped down on the bed between them. Sweet Pea's gaze darted to Rocket's face, questioning. Rocket gave a short, barely visible nod that told Sweet Pea to refrain from saying anything objective. This advice was thoroughly ignored.

"No one can escape from here, so don't even try," Sweet Pea said matter-of-factly, taking up her book once more. Working all day entertaining patients, evening was the only point of the day when she was allotted alone time. With her tattered book in hand she would remain awake long past the time when the last light in the building had gone out. Used to the obdurate speeches of the girls, she was not about to devote additional precious hours to listening to more of them.

Rocket, on the other hand, was alone obstinate enough to avoid exercising much patience. Also, she was afraid. After years of watching so many confused lives pass by, grief had worn a blister on her heart. Brave enough to undertake the most dangerous of missions, she was hardly afraid of much. Over a decade of experience of the sort beyond her years had taught her that fear was not an emotion to feel for oneself, but rather something to feel for others.

She was afraid for them, the tired ones who drudged through their lives so slowly that it was painful to watch. Whilst most wise people are careful to avoid going through life without stopping to smell the flowers, some poor souls have no flowers in their lives. Worse even than that, the flowers are ones that they cannot smell. Rocket was afraid that those poor people would not have anything to enjoy in their lives and, when they came to the end of the line, would have wasted precious years that were beyond their ability to experience.

She tried to fix this for them, attempted to arrange their lives so that an occasional rose might spring up among the sand dunes. But it was a faint hope, a tiny fish concealed within the heavy breakers of a vast ocean. When one of the girls did notice her, the blister on her heart grew just a bit smaller with the knowledge that she had made their life a little more bearable. But also when they did, the blister peeled away, letting her bleed anew. Out of all the flowers on earth, she was hoping that they would find her.

Rocket had spent three years with Baby Doll, helping her and encouraging her. She had coaxed small, unimportant memories out of her mind, trying to work some pleasure back into her life. She had obtained special permission from Blue to take Baby Doll outside. This, she hoped, would help spark the remembrance. When this miracle occurred, it would always be something small: a butterfly's colorful wings, an exquisitely shaped cloud in the grey sky.

The first, the day on which Baby Doll's mind had returned for an instant, it had been something miniscule, so insignificant that it was almost unnoticeable. It had been a bird, a swallow. When it had winged swiftly overhead, Baby Doll had cried out in recognition, the vacant look leaving her eyes. Stopping dead where she stood, her arms slightly extended, poised on her toes, Rocket had thought for a moment that she was meaning to fly, too.

"Swallow!" she had exclaimed with a wide gesture towards the sky, her thin, pale hand urgent. She had turned to the stunned Rocket, grinning broadly. "I saw it!" she had declared, pleased. Then her shoulders had sagged, the emptiness returning. Rocket, smiling gently, had led her back to into the asylum, delighted with the girl's success. For the next few weeks, the nightly silence had been broken by Baby Doll's further cries of _swallow! _It was as if she was reliving the moment, seeing again the bird that had so swiftly changed her lifeless existence.

But as the days went by, the sleep talking became infrequent. What had in the first few days been loud exclamations that disrupted the nightly quiet reduced slowly to murmurs. Less and less often she had cried out. And the shouts reduced to murmurs, murmurs to mumbles, until she sobbed when her effort to retain the memory failed. Finally there was nothing left; all was silent. But it was the loudest silence that Rocket had ever known.

Rocket was beside herself with excitement at the duration of Baby Doll's consciousness, and refused to take no for an answer. Sweet Pea understood, she knew, so why was she being so stubborn? Rocket lay stiffly on her back, turning her head back and forth to look first at her sister and then at the girl who had just so calmly proposed a death sentence for them all. She was determined to keep the conversation going for as long as was possible.

"Yeah," drawled a slow, heavily Texan-accented voice from Baby Doll's right, efficaciously breaking into Rocket's train of thought. The speaker was the girl whom Sweet Pea had recently noticed in her brief examination of the room. When all eyes, including Baby Doll's, were precipitously trained on her, she did not seem to notice. "The last three gals who tried . . . weel, they died."

It was Blondie, a black-haired girl with a rebellious manner and little tolerance for authority. Rocket vaguely remembered a day when she had sat with her, trying to coax some sanity into her. This attempt had not failed, and now Blondie's mind was perpetually functional. This process had taken nearly ten years, but there was no uncertainty in her gaze. And still they would not let her out.

Baby Doll was experiencing something strange. She could not remember ever having such a clear mind. She was unsure of nothing suddenly, and was not going to let anyone stand in her way when she wanted to make a speech. With her abrupt stability of mind had come an idea, a hope, a passion. She longed do something memorable, something that would ensure that others knew of her existence. Something that would prove she _had _an existence.

"Well, I'm going," she said somewhat crossly. "I'm getting the hell out of here." Sweet Pea rolled her eyes and turned to chapter three, muttering darkly. Rocket, rather than getting excited, watched for any sign of relapse. Amber, at this moment returning from her rather uncomfortable chastisement, stopped quizzically when she heard the discussion. At the adventurous proposition, Blondie lifted herself up onto one elbow, anticipation alight in her dark brown eyes.

"Can I come?" she asked hopefully, ignoring the dark, disbelieving looks shot by Sweet Pea. Baby Doll nodded, stopping halfway through the motion, confused. It was yet another unfamiliar movement for her head to make. The agreeing voice that spoke to Blondie, while she was positive that it belonged to her, felt as if it were being controlled by someone other than herself. Her mouth moved automatically, her lips forming the words without effort.

"Of course you can." Blondie grinned, excitedly awaiting the coming adventure. In her nineteen years, no one besides Rocket had ever agreed with her, much less granted her permission to go on a dangerous expedition. Rocket was understanding and encouraging, a good friend to have. Amber, finding solitude preferable to friendship, was stubborn and sulky. As for Sweet Pea . . . well, Sweet Pea had always been overly mature and pestering, hiding what little compassion she had.

After nineteen years of sisterhood, Rocket was aggravated. Sweet Pea was too serious, she thought with impatience, too thoughtful and cautious when it came to adventure. At first it seemed to be a gift; after all, _someone _in that sort of establishment had to be sensible. But after a while, when being sensible was not an option, it became irritating. Wishing to provoke her sister into heavy frustration, Rocket decided to flout common sense and was immediately caught up in the rather insane action.

"Me too?" she asked, her eyes flaming with adventure. As she had expected, Sweet Pea snorted, laying her book down. Disregarding all events of the past five minutes, this was too much. It was so obscure, so foolish, that it felt surreal to her. She was much too sensible to allow her younger sister to embark on a dangerous, impossible journey led by a half-mad teenage girl. Besides, they wouldn't have a chance of escaping, so it was all a daydream anyway.

"You're not going anywhere, Rocket," she stated, as if that fact were completely obvious and why on earth hadn't they realized it before? Rocket should realize that there was no possibility of this fantasy becoming reality. Baby Doll's proposition had been so sudden that Sweet Pea was rather in shock. There she had been, quietly reading the tale of Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, and suddenly a little girl who couldn't possibly be more than sixteen came barging into the room declaring certain war with Blue.

A quiet, reasonable voice was not welcome in the ears of the other girls at this moment. Amber was still ill informed as to the more complicated depths of the conversation's subject, and was standing in front of the closed door, shooting perplexed glances about the room. Baby Doll was grinding her teeth in frustration, feeling emotions more intensely than usual. Rocket, now thoroughly annoyed by her sister's clear lack of adventurous personae, turned her head once more upon her pillow, smiling rather too pleasantly.

"Yes I am," she said, her voice altogether too sweet for innocence. Sweet Pea gave her a look as if to say _you know better _and shook her head in defeat, though inside she was seething. This conversation was insane; there was no other word for it. Why did she have to be assigned to _this _room, of all places? There were at least fifty others in the gigantic building, so why this one?

The lamplight caught the red tones in her hair, making it shimmer with a fire-like light. If someone were to describe it that way, he or she would be pragmatic. Sweet Pea was a spitfire, Rocket a fireball. Both had the power to ignite the world with a single coal. They could engulf a planet in flames. Sweet Pea's green eyes glinted like emeralds as her alto voice spoke, disbelieving and skeptical.

"Send me a postcard from paradise," she requested sarcastically, lifting her book again to hide her face. It was back in her lap momentarily, however. Sweet Pea had been disgusted into returning to converse by Elizabeth telling Jane that she had liked many a stupider person, which was altogether too close to reality for her taste.

"Really, Rocket, 'with your good sense, to be so honestly blind to the follies and nonsense of others'!" she quoted drily from her book. "Where is your sagacity these days? If you neglect it, it will leave you completely." The younger one gave no visible reaction to the scolding, and simply smiled to herself mysteriously and kicked her heels together in the air.

No clock existed in Lippincott House, the reason for which was unknown. Baby Doll had a theory regarding the unknown, yet she herself was unaware of the fact of this. She unconsciously figured that clocks were thought to distract them. Knowing the time, they might fall into unpredictable patterns, inexplicable habits; just the sort of thing that Blue worked so hard to discourage.

Baby Doll had fallen into a habit regardless. Curious as to what time of day it was, she routinely looked at the sun for an answer, query in her expression. In her eyes were questions in the plural, not all of which were in relation to the hour. Rocket, Amber, and even Sweet Pea had noticed that she appeared to be asking many questions at once.

She would screw up her face in concentration, making Rocket wonder if the sun was indeed more knowledgeable than anyone thought and was giving answer to the blonde-haired girl's inquiries. Rocket always sighed when she noticed this mindless interrogation taking place, and the blister on her heart began to bleed anew. Her heart went out to the strange girl with the strange mind, the one whom everyone ignored. It was a good feeling for Rocket, to know that _someone _was answering Baby Doll's questions.

Baby Doll glanced down the row of beds with a focused look on her small face. Getting up slowly, she walked purposefully down the aisle to the end of the room. There she stopped, standing still with her back to the other girls, before the five tall windows with their ornate frames. Stretching her arms up, she touched the glass with a single finger, so lightly that it was difficult to catch the movement. Her hands left no fingerprints.

The sunset burned in the sky, setting the world aflame. The hillside was bare but for the widespread trees with their fiery orange and yellow leaves. Upon it, centered meticulously at the very top, sat the asylum; a wretched black fortress in a sea of raging fire. Around the hill grew a dense, heavily wooded forest. It was not dark and creepy, tangled in the way of a snare, but gentler, kinder, a scene of hope among the darkness.

It was extensive, spreading for hundreds of miles on end, covering gradients with autumn flames, but Lippincott House was set so high that they could see everything. Over the trees, over the mountains, until the sky dipped down to meet the earth, and the already blazing hills were engulfed in a haze of gold and crimson flames.

Rocket, seeing the light from the evening sun cast in swirls around the room, stood and followed Baby Doll's path to the window. Looking swiftly sideways at the girl, she could see Baby Doll's concentration ebbing away. It was time for her to go. Some unknown force in a far corner of her brain was calling to her, telling her that this was enough for one day.

As Baby Doll's consciousness slipped from her grasp, so did all of her wild plans, her crazy ideas for an escape. Blondie, coming over as well, noticed the blankness where there had just a minute ago been reasoned thoughts. She prayed silently to Baby Doll, begging her to come back soon so that she might hear more. The girl's bizarre plots and reasoning had lit a candle of hope inside the darkness that was her soul, and she did not want it to burn out just like that.

Amber, not wanting to be left out, hastened to the window to view the spectacular sight. She nearly gasped aloud at the scene, seeing the beautiful burning sky. It had been awhile since she had seen something so pretty. Not wanting to let it go, or even for someone else to be ignorant of it, she called thoughtlessly over to only girl left behind.

"Sweet Pea, come see this. It's beautiful," she marveled. Sweet Pea sighed, tucked her book under her pillow for the night, and meandered over to the small group of girls. She would go to please them, as she always did, but it was unlikely that she would find something unforgettable in the wonders that they beheld.

Just as she came over, it began to rain. The sun still shone on the horizon, the pink swirled clouds lit radiantly in the gorgeous twilit sky. Water poured down in torrents, cutting tear-like streaks on the windows. Red light caught in the raindrops, sparkling like a single-colored prism. Gold was there too, and suddenly the whole world was doused in a sparkling, showery fire.

Caught in the awe of the unnatural beauty, the girls stood silent, five statues in a sleeping park. Baby Doll dropped her hand from the windowpane, leaving no smudge of a fingerprint behind. Still as cold stone, only the eyes of the other girls moved. A gaze as concentrated as a quarrel penetrated the sparkling, fiery rain; the lightly questioning eyes of Rocket followed Baby Doll with intense curiosity.

"What are you thinking?" The inquisitive whisper, light as a summer's breeze, hissed softly through Rocket's teeth before she could prevent it. The square jaw set, biting hard against the chapped lips as vivid jade eyes shot hastily to each face. Sweet Pea's censorious frown came to attention proximately, but the other two were so preoccupied with watching the rain that their filtered ears had not heard the sound.

Cat stared at mouse as the sisters regarded one another with quizzical expressions, each trying to figure out the other's intentions. The mouse hole had vanished, allowing predator and prey to dash about the house with no place of refuge. The arched, delicate brows above Sweet Pea's glimmering eyes were pinched together in a ponderous frown. Then the mouse broke eye contact, gazed once more at the back of Baby Doll's head, and then crossed the room to collapse wearily on her bed.

Exhausted, the young girl presumed that sleep would discover her within a matter of minutes. And yet, hours after the entire rest of the room had fallen asleep, her eyes remained open, staring into the darkness. The silence tonight was restful, broken only by the deep, even breathing of the other girls to which sleep had mercifully come. Even Sweet Pea had at last turned out her dimly shining light, satisfied that Mr. Darcy was indeed the "Pride" part of Pride and Prejudice.

Or was Elizabeth in fact the proud one? Perhaps she was wrong, and Elizabeth was really the building standing on a foundation of vanity. Was Mr. Darcy no more than a man, or very much more than a man? This question has surely been asked a number of irrelevant times, but possibly the true answer has been overlooked in the past. Could there be something hidden there, something underneath, that spoke of more than just ill manners and conceit? Could _Sweet Pea_ ask the same questions about_ herself _and get _yes _for an answer?

Of course she could, but considering all that was on her mind at the present time, she wasn't likely to bother.

WWWWW

Time ticks away slowly for those who are awaiting an event. In the car, with small children as passengers, the cry is often heard, "are we _there _yet?" Of course the answer is no, for if they were there they would not be in the car. Sometimes it seems as if no time is passing at all, but for Baby Doll, as there was nothing for her to consciously wait for, time in itself did not exist slow, fast, or otherwise.

The heels of Baby Doll's scuffed, heavy shoes clicked together aimlessly on the brass rung of her uncomfortable chair. The metal seat stayed cold, the hour for which she had sat upon it notwithstanding; she squirmed slightly, warranting herself a soupçon of Blue's incessantly-disseminated venom. Her left cheek, translucent and babyish like the rest of her face, already stung with the red mark of an orderly's sharp hand. Sporadically a toneless hum escaped her trembling lips.

Rocket hummed excessively, showing an even clearer ability to disregard the fact that she could not carry a simple tune. Rocket and Sweet Pea could, in the past, sing quite well, but over a decade of living at Lippincott House had robbed them of the capability. Not that there was anyone left to care. Sweet Pea found it somewhat unfortunate that the two of them had lost their musical abilities, but she would not mention it for the world.

Amber and Blondie sat side by side, staring dejectedly into space. Amber held her pencil limply between two fingers; Blondie had dropped hers to the floor and lacked the slightest motivation to bother picking it up. Why waste the energy? She had so little of that left that it seemed impractical to use it. Besides, to lean down would require effort, something that she disliked having to give. Rocket, unwilling to be robbed of the past year's worth of work with the two girls, would occasionally stand up, mosey her way around the table, and elbow each of them severely in the ribs to free them from their stupor.

"Sweet Pea, darling, give your sister a good slap, will you? She's interfering with my concentration," Blue drawled from the corner where he sat with his feet on his long mahogany desk, his chair tipped back against the copper-green pillared wall. He gave a vague sort of gesture in the general direction of the so-called troublemaker. He liked to supervise from this reclining position, making certain that all was going smoothly. He ran an obsessively ordered institution, and was needlessly determined when it came to doing so. As if anyone could defy him.

Sweet Pea could resist him to a certain degree, and this was only due to the unfortunate fact of Blue enjoying her reluctant company to the extent where he had become futilely enamored. His admiration was meaningless, as Sweet Pea couldn't have been more disgusted with him for who he was and what he did. However, today, though she found him rather irksome, she realized that this was not a time for rebellion. Crossing the room swiftly from her compulsory perch across Blue's desk, she gave Rocket a light pinch on the arm, knowing that it had not hurt enough and unwilling to make it hurt more.

"Hush yourself," she scolded in an undertone, "Blue's getting antsy." At this assertion of a certain, clearly defined danger point, Rocket grinned mischievously and began to whistle softly between her teeth. Tapping her short fingers on the table in a loud, rapid rhythm, she stared athwart at Blue to be sure that the little pucker of infuriation between his dark eyebrows was indeed present. When Sweet Pea cleared her throat with a severe _ahem, _Rocket looked up at her innocently.

"Yes?" she asked, acquitted enough for anyone but Sweet Pea to let her go unsuspected. The answering smack smarted on her cheek. Letting out an angry huff, she bent over her notebook and stared at the blank page unseeingly. Lingering resolutely beside the table for a moment, Sweet Pea looked up unwillingly to see Blue's satisfied expression. Antagonism surged through her for an instant, but promptly vanished, its unalloyed absence propelling her back to Blue's expectant side.

Rocket watched her elder sister scamper away with an expression of fury. The way that Blue was using her sister angered her. It was bad enough to stick Sweet Pea in such a place along with Rocket, but to put that sort of burden upon her fragile shoulders was an unspeakable disgrace. No one would guess from the black blouse and short cotton skirt that the girl was a day older than eighteen, yet the days of twenty-three had already come and gone, and it seemed that many more of the same would do her in entirely.

From the drab, dark clothes to the way that her hair hung in limp ringlets about her heart-shaped face, everything about her appearance was pathetic. Her sparkling eyes had grown quite weary by this hour of the day, and her shoulders were hunched over so that the thin material of her dull black sweater crumpled loosely at her chest. Casting herself wearily into the hard, straight-backed wooden chair, her long white hands grasped pleadingly at her throat, to where a small ebony locket hung by a thin gold chain.

Only Rocket knew what was to be found within that small adornment. Ten years previously, when the loss of their parents had been the hardest upon her, Sweet Pea had showed her how to open the small clasp on its side. She had spent hours of each day looking at the pictures within. On the left side, a photograph of their father, with their mother mirroring his position. Both treasured, both lost, but never forgotten by their daughters.

Rocket's fingers scrabbled absently at her own locket, in which there could be found a small, tightly wound curl of silky smooth blonde hair. Sweet little Ebony, whose place was empty before it even had truly been filled. Only three at the time of her death, the little girl had not even known her sisters, who were away at boarding school when the tragic event took place. Rocket thought about her baby sister often, and seldom realized that she had never even known of the child until she was to be known no longer.

On the opposite side of the room, there was a certain blankness that the rest of the large space lacked. Baby Doll, finding scribbling aimlessly in the way of her fellow inmates meaningless and undesirable, observed the activities. Not truly present, she was unable to make an offer of an audible comment. However, barring anything outside her realm of understanding, she was quite capable of assembling a series of nonsensical colloquies within her disorderly mind. This she did with apparent inner enjoyment, for a faintly amused smile playing on her lips while her eyes held their customarily distant look.

Keen observation was required to keep her thoughts in order; hence she took in the surroundings that did not require the rolling of an eye or turning of a head. The only visible change in the room was the exclusion of the desks. Six long tables, each seating four or five, were situated carefully at right angles. The walls, intricately designed, sickened her and she had to close her eyes. The blackness in her vision spun, swirling into repulsive colors like a melting rainbow.

Rocket was fidgeting, twisting and turning, craning her neck backwards like something possessed. From the much-loathed assigned seat, Sweet Pea shot her a warning glance. When Blue gave her a meaningful eyebrow raise she pursed her lips, intertwining her long fingers as she shut her eyes and pretended not to notice. It was better if she did not ignore him, she had learned, but at the present she had the feeling of not caring in the least about anyone's thoughts except her own.

Blondie, having at last found incentive enough to retrieve her writing implement, began to smack it against the worn edge of the table in time to Rocket's finger-drumming. Amber, growing weary of aimless doodling, found entertainment in poking holes in her paper with the tip of her pencil. Soon that, too, became a rhythmic throbbing. Rocket smirked at nothing as Baby Doll opened her eyes, drawn back to the surface by the unexplained beating that resounded inside her head.

Blue, aggravated further by his puppet's lack of response, relocated himself into a more professional position and began tapping his foot on the tile floor; Sweet Pea's breathing frequency increased. The tension in the room amplified as the disjointed pattering of the Blue and the five girls fell into a synchronized rhythm, ironically mimicking the agitating ticking of a clock.

The rhythm pulsed in Baby Doll's eyes, bending her vision back and forth till she thought it might break. It was like the surface of a bubble, trembling as it felt the strain struggling to pop it. All of those stray bubbles, carried about the yard on a light summer's wind, were going to burst into nothing because that little girl, the one with the brown braids, was trying to catch them . . . but you couldn't catch a bubble; it wasn't possible. What _was_ the child thinking?

She was going to break them, break them all, those perfect little transparent spheres of shimmering rainbows. But they were so perfect, so pretty. What mysteries did they hold? What magic did they contain? If they burst, the magic would disappear and there would be no way to get it back. Baby Doll ran towards the little girl, feeling as if every step was a mile under her feet, stretching out a hand toward the child who pounced on the air, leaping to catch the magic as it floated slowly away . . .

"Don't!" The cry brought Baby Doll back to the room, back to the table at which she sat. Whipping her head frantically from side to side, she searched the room for the speaker. What had they said? Whose pained cry had it been that had broken the tension? Who held the pin that burst the bubble? After a split-second of bewilderment, she realized that the voice was her own.

A single cry, so lost and lonely, can have an astonishing effect on a space filled to the brim with tension. The chamber's size matters not, for isn't it incredible the damage a single drop of poison can do to a very large glass of water? What an infinitesimal pin's point could do to a bubble that covered the entire world? A tiny wave crashing against a sand castle can take out the very bottom of the structure. And there is no such thing as a structure without a base. In that room, a tiny wave came. And the base washed out.

The hall erupted, the string snapped by Baby Doll's exclamation. Though she had not meant to speak aloud, it is difficult to control one's actions when one is lost in a memory. The cry set off an enormous firecracker of pent-up restlessness and mental stress, sending a missile of noise and destruction rebounding off the walls like a cute little puppy that has been penned up for too long. However, the unfortunate thing about puppies is that they can make one hell of a noise.

It was a pandemonium. Screams filled the air, echoing off the vaulted ceiling as a shout would in the dark internal cavities of a cavernous cave. As Baby Doll had the night of her arrival at the asylum, they reacted in the temper of a wild beast imprisoned in a tight net: defensive, uncivilized, feral, rabid; mad. If no one had found a reason to tame them, then how else would they respond?

Manners, civility, meant nothing to them. They might as well have been those captured animals, imprisoned forever in nets. Savage, because no one had taught them otherwise. Perhaps, if someone _had _taught them, or tamed them even the slightest, there would be no firecracker, no hysterical puppy.

But alas, people felt neither grief nor sympathy for them. Had anyone ever done such a noble thing? It would not cross anyone's mind, that idea of assisting someone else. And so the best way to think of them was to envision that puppy, the one who barked and ran and hollered until it was tired, and then collapsed into a dreamless sleep. Uncontrollable. But unable to take the blame for its actions.

Notebooks were hurled through the air at the walls, shrieks flung at nothing in particular. Rocket, Amber, and Blondie jumped up and ran right into the thick of things, gladly taking advantage of the opportunity to throw things. Rocket, clambering atop her table, snatched a notebook out of the air and lobbed it in the direction of Blue's head, her often-careworn face alight with a delighted smile. Life these days was commonly absent of fun, so to have it was a great gift. A calm Blue coolly addressed the shrieking din.

"Sweet Pea . . ." he feigned helplessness as he gave her a beseeching look. His voice, gallingly charming, endearingly ordered the disgusted girl's assistance in calming the overexcited crowd. Won by nonentity, Sweet Pea looked up despairingly from underneath her eyelashes, inclined her face to the left reproachfully, and shook her head.

Blue, smiling altogether too sweetly, nodded slowly, insisting. His eyes held a hint of warning. In persistent response, Sweet Pea's head moved unrelentingly from side to side once more at an identically measured, deliberate speed. The two shared a dangerously tenacious look, each challenging the other to give in.

Rocket, happening to glance over at the corner in which the most interesting sort of challenge was taking place and noticing the staring contest, was immediately overcome with a fit of shrill laughter and had to duck beneath a table to escape notice. Chortling uncontrollably, she wondered why Sweet Pea was choosing this particular moment to rebel instead of assist. Whatever the reason, she was eternally grateful. However, when Blue seemed to come to his senses and remember who he was, Rocket winced in sympathy.

Blue stood up, looming menacingly over the desk and Sweet Pea. He leaned on it, palms down, as the dangerous look in his eyes became even more threatening. He cleared his throat sharply, glaring down at his imminent victim. Sweet Pea cringed and recoiled in a way that was quite unlike her, knowing exactly what was coming and dreading the fact that there was nothing she could do to prevent it.

"Malone, back hallway. With me. Now." Rocket gulped nervously in fear for Sweet Pea. The soft, deadly tone, combined with the atypical and carefully reserved use of their last names, was the final signal to run. Any later, and the results would be disastrous. Rocket had never been caught in such a quandary before, but then again she was unlike her sister in many ways.

A rebel from the very beginning, escaping tight situations was more natural to her than breathing. Rocket, though she had been caught in many a predicament, was never punished. The three-year-old cookie thief had yet to receive a thrashing sixteen years later. Sweet Pea, however, had been brought up as a haughty, ostentatious puppet, and the word _run _meant nothing to her. She would surely pay for her ignorance as well as her conceit.

Though she had been pretentious even as a four year old, her hand had never been in the cookie jar without a signed permission slip. However, in the world she occupied at the present, permission slips were only a requirement for people like Rocket. To people of that sort, cookie jars were nonexistent, or at least forbidden. With Sweet Pea this was not the case. Being a puppet had its benefits.

But when the one guarding the sweets was Blue, she didn't stand a chance. Yes, perhaps for a few moments she would be falsely forgiven, but in the end the odds would not be in her favor. Now, Rocket watched with sympathy – though not empathy – as there began a very interesting game of cat and mouse. Said game did not last long, and the two exited the room to the left.

Concerned to a rare extent, Rocket decided to bring upon the party a swift and impromptu termination. Amber caught her commanding nod, and got a firm hold on Blondie's arm. Rocket hesitated for a moment, surveying the wild scene. At last she clambered onto her table, cupped her hands around her mouth, and yelled to the room at large.

_"Shut up!" _ There was a slightly delayed response, as if her words had taken an extra moment to register. That was often how it worked; the minds of the girls were so accustomed to be isolatedthat the voice of another human being, one that was _not _imaginary, would take some time to be heard. Thinking it rather childish without realizing that this was her opinion, Baby Doll had silently refused to engage in the game of complete insanity.

However, being a game they all played, how could anyone know how insane it really was? Baby Doll had tried for as long as she could remember to puzzle it out, but still she did not know. Perhaps they were crazy, and perhaps they were not. Perhaps there was an answer, and perhaps there was not. But intention was everywhere; all they had to do was discover it. Whether she knew it or not, the intention was Baby Doll.

She would figure it out eventually.


	4. Lullaby Lane

_I did not know why I cried; I only knew that I was sobbing as if there were no tomorrow. Perhaps there was a reason for my uncalled upon tears, and perhaps not. If there was in fact a reason, I was unaware of it, and I wished desperately for an answer. But in my dreamlike world, I would have no way of knowing if the answer I received was true. _

_Sweet Pea lay on the hard, cold, unresponsive floor, salty tears leaking out of her eyes and down her granite-clammy cheeks. The basement room was cold, damp, and the air was clammy. She stared into the darkness unseeing, unable to move even if she hadn't lacked the motivation. Her extremities seemed paralyzed, and a dull ache was slowly spreading more cognizantly all over her body. The clothes in which she lay were damp and limp, sticking to her fragile skin._

_She was only vaguely aware of her surroundings, and of a dull, pounding pain in the front of her forehead, right between her eyes. The floor was wet, freezing, seeping into her clothes until she was shivering all over. And then she was burning up, and someone was screaming. Someone was being slammed over and over again into a wall, and stabbed again and again . . . it was Rocket; no, it was her, and there was pain and blood everywhere . . ._

_And then the pain was lesser and lesser, not gone, but duller, and she was wrapped in something warm and soft. The shivers were going away now, and so was the pain, but still the memories and the screams and the flashbacks came and went. Then someone was touching her cheek gently, like butterfly wings, and someone was murmuring tenderly in her ear. Who was it?_

_Her eyes opened a little bit, and she could see a blurry shape looming above her eyes. She blinked, and it came more into focus as a human figure . . ._

Back in the much-loathed dormitory, Rocket sat Baby Doll down on her bed, looking her straight in the eyes. Baby Doll stared back blankly, seeing the girl before her but not understanding what her presence meant. She could sense frustration emitting from the person before her. Rocket laughed in defeated irritation.

"Just what am I going to do with you, huh?" she asked impatiently. She shook the unresponsive girl's shoulders impatiently. "Baby Doll, listen to me!"

_Baby Doll, listen to me! _The words were like a slap in Baby Doll's face, and she was abruptly withdrawn even farther from reality. The world was tipped, confusing . . . the dormitory spun in and out, interrupted by flashes of memory so long forgotten that they could have been a dream. A long, dark hallway with a damp green rug; a small room with only one window in the peak of the roof, an angry little child stamping her foot on the floor in frustration. _Listen! Please, Baby Doll; they're coming! They're coming to get us! We have to hide, we have to . . ._

"No, no!" Baby Doll cried out, breaking into her own reverie. The room came abruptly back into sharp focus; the little child vanished, along with its pathetic cries of infuriation. "No!" A strange emotion overcame her, one that she had not felt in a long time. Grief. She began to sob, crying hysterically like a small child whose favorite pet has just died.

"Baby Doll, get a grip!" Rocket grumbled, releasing Baby Doll's shoulder irritably. "I know there's some control in there somewhere; find it." Baby Doll, who wouldn't have been able to find herself anyways, was completely unreachable at this point. She was already too far gone. She stood up in a wild attempt at protest, and then collapsed on the bed, sobbing uncontrollably, grabbing her pillow and squeezing it so hard that several feathers popped out and drifted slowly to the floor.

Baby Doll was conscious of one thing; she was crying. She didn't know why. All she knew was that the tears were endless and hysterical, and that she was holding something soft. She flopped on the bed, clutching the pillow like a treasured stuffed animal, crying whilst not knowing why.

She was vaguely aware of Rocket's vacancy and swift return with several more shadowy presences that she could not define, the haze caused partly by the tears in her eyes and the confusing double-reality that was her own existence. She could hear a voice speaking to her in a familiar tone, the one they always used with the girls when they were so far gone over the line into hysteria that they were completely unreachable: low and singsong; an endless murmur of muddled and irrelevant words that were meant to console, and not to enlighten. Several pairs of hands lifted her from the bed and to her feet, and then led her down an infinite series of staircases and corridors, allowing her to stumble along until at last they came to a small room.

It was tiny, dark, and windowless. The walls, floor, and ceiling were covered by a soft, thick material that spoke of soundproofing. A small mattress with no pillow or blanket lay on the floor in one corner of the room. There was nothing else in the room, nothing at all.

When the bodiless hands that guided her released her arms and pushed her into the room, she began to hear a succession of high, piercing screams. The untrustworthy hands took hold of her again, and she twisted and fought, thrashing in their vice-like grip until they lifted her off the floor and then set her down again on the mattress. The screams continued. Then the hands were absent again, and she heard a door slam shut, and all was silent save the wild, frantic screaming that went on and on and on.

She curled up on the mattress, the tears hot and ceaseless, her head pounding. Why couldn't they hear her, why wouldn't they stop it? The sound of silence was a low moan, escalating in pitch until it was so high that human ears couldn't possibly have heard it, growing higher and higher until it exploded into nonexistence. She continued to feel the presence of imaginary hands on her, and thrashed wildly on the cold, tear-damp mattress, struggling to get away until at last exhaustion overtook her, and she fell into a restless sleep, the sounds of her own screams fading away until they took up a throbbing quality that made it impossible to tell if they were real, or if they existed only inside her head.

Thrice she awoke from the ethereal dimness of dreamland to find herself in an even greater darkness that was black and far too silent to be real. She was jerked suddenly to her senses from a strange vision in which she was falling, not fast as if off a cliff, but slowly, drifting like a feather through the dark tunnels and vortexes of space and time. She had the sensation of falling for what seemed to be hours, until, just as she was beginning to accept the dream as another reality, she became conscious that she was actually going to fall. This concept frightened her, and she awoke with a start.

There was nothing to see when she opened her eyes, only blackness. It could have been daytime, or it could have been the middle of the night. How could she know, when there were no windows for light to come through, no clock or watch to tell her the time? There was nothing, only dark. She could see nothing, hear nothing, smell nothing, and taste nothing. The only sense she had left was the feeling of the lumpy mattress beneath her, still cold despite her long repose upon it.

The next time, she woke up from an unremembered dream, but one that was just as frightening. She was awakened again by her own screaming to find that she had rolled fitfully off of the mattress and onto the floor. She turned over onto her side, only to collide with the edge of the mattress. Startled, she gave a frightened yelp, and the screams started again.

Flying to her feet, she hurled herself, terrified, into the darkness, and crashed hard into the wall. Lights exploded in her vision, popped into her eyes. All at once she grew dizzy, stumbled for a few feet, and then crumpled against the wall. She began to sob helplessly, confused, exhausted, and the victim of a pounding headache and pain that came from somewhere else deep inside.

The last time she awakened, it was to an electric sort of yellow light streaming through the open doorway and into the room. A figure stood before her, framed by the light so that she could not see its face. It loomed above her, huge, taking up her entire vision. Though her throat was hoarse from all of her screaming, she once again began to sob, screaming though her tears, staggering to her feet and stumbling around and around in crazed circles, bashing into the wall again and again until a pair of strong arms grabbed her, pinning her arms to her sides.

"What should we do with her, Milt?" asked a deep, detached voice. The sound boomed in her ears, and she instinctively moved her hands to cover them. When her arms would not be released, she began to scream again, so shrilly that she was almost liberated. Confused and frightened, she began once more to struggle, but gave up a moment later in defeat.

"I dunno Caleb," came the response once she had quieted. "This one's gone plumb crazy; if we leave her here she'll kill herself, banging into the wall the way she is. She's got a welt on her forehead the size of Chicago." Both voices were unfamiliar to Baby Doll, and the thought – of it could be called that – of being in the hands of more strangers terrified her. Fatigued, muddled, and panicky, she opened her mouth to scream again, thought the better of it, and clamped her jaw tightly shut.

"Put her outside, I say," contributed a third voice. "She can't get lost in the dark anyhow, not when she's lost inside her own head." The other two made noises of assent, and Baby Doll felt a little tug on her arm. Automatically, she began to stumble along in the direction that the nudge had indicated, aware that she was being guided by someone else, someone she couldn't see.

Baby Doll was quite bewildered by this point. One part of her, most of her, was wild and uncertain, unable to see or hear or comprehend. But there was a small part of her, buried back in a far corner of her brain, that was fighting to be heard. It couldn't quite get through to the other part of her; it would rise, swelling like a breaking wave, until the walls that confined it rose too high and it sank back down, resting, waiting for another chance. But it was there, and it made sense.

The hallway and people vanished, and she was abruptly in a small room. It was clearly a bedroom, with a small, rickety, iron frame bed whose white paint was badly chipped, showing the black metal beneath it. The wooden floor was bare, and the only other pieces of furniture in the room were an old stained wardrobe and a small wooden desk. An old, sputtering candle cast tired shadows upon the walls.

Baby Doll herself was curled up on the bed, barefooted, and wearing a pair of salmon-pink pajamas; a small blouse and pants that were too short, revealing her bare ankles and feet. She was sitting up, hugging her knees to her chest, staring straight ahead. Part of her, the part of her still in the vacant, lifeless corridors of the asylum, wondered what on earth she was doing there, but another part, another half of her consciousness, was in that room, and it knew very well what was going on.

Inside her was a feeling of frustration, mixed with another feeling. Loneliness. She was alone here, though the men on the other side of her door were there as always, chatting away in loud voices while she tried to sleep. She hated them, all of them. Why couldn't they all just go away, and leave her here to cry and rest? She wanted some peace.

She had an overwhelming urge to run screaming through the crowd of men in the hallway, _her _hallway, _her _house, to the empty bedroom. Her mother, father, and sister should be there, waiting for her. They should be sitting on the bed, waiting for her to come and sit between them as she always did on a cold winter night like this. But they weren't there. There was no one there. She was alone.

Suddenly a rush of fresh air hit her, and the conscious part of Baby Doll knew that she was outside. It was nighttime; the world was dark like her prison, but lit by the brilliance of thousands of tiny white stars. She took a deep breath, feeling the cool night air wash over her like water. The hands that held her set her down in the damp, chilly grass. Then they walked away, and she was alone.

Slowly, she stretched out on the chilly ground. The wetness brought back memories of less confusing times, and for a moment, she almost knew who she was. The conscious part of her mind grew stronger, pushing out all the other bits of insanity until it could move no farther and gave up, allowing madness to take control again. The world took up a certain misty quality that she was well accustomed to, and she knew that she was about to fall asleep.

Baby Doll almost cried out, not wanting to be lost again, but bit her tongue hard instinctively, realizing to some weak extent that if she were heard, she would be brought inside again. The pain helped her focus, and brought her back a little. An unstable idea coming to mind, she reached out and took a handful of grass, clenching it so hard in her little fist that her fingers grew numb. It was certainly helping, for every once in a while the veil was lifted, and she could see the world for what it really was, and not as it existed in her dreams.

"Well, it's good to see _you _out and about again," said a cross little voice. Baby Doll let out a sharp squeal, sitting up quickly to see the dim shape of Rocket crouching in a tree. Rocket laughed dismissively, shaking her head as if to a four year old. "You think you're alone? No chance, little missy; you've been under heavy watch for days. And don't tell me you don't know how long you've been out of it; I know that there's _someone _in there doing the thinking."

"Owls," Baby Doll murmured, focusing her attention somewhere above Rocket's left shoulder. Rocket snorted. Baby Doll cocked her head at Rocket, her eyes still focused with a point of intensity. Her pastel face was ghostly pale in the moonlight. Light eyes in a spirit-like face gave the impression that she wasn't entirely there. Not physically, not mentally, not at all.

"Oh, is that it? So it's owls now. First don't, then no, and now, finally, _owls. _Well, I don't know what you're trying to say, but it must mean _something_. Go on now, what it is? Spit it out – I'm all ears." Rocket raised her hands to show that she was ready to listen. Baby Doll, in a brief moment of sanity, raised her hand to point at the spot where her eyes were fixated. Rocket turned quickly to look, and at her sudden movement the two snowy owls that had been sitting in the tree took off, soaring away on silent wings. Both girls watched the great white birds wing away, gliding, coasting, drifting; sailing away into the starlight like two silent ghosts, never to be seen again.

There was something in the sight of those owls that Rocket found magical, and as the owls vanished into the light of the dark moon, her gaze dropped to the round, serene face of the younger girl who everyone called insane. It wasn't insanity, whatever was wrong with her; Rocket was sure of that. Madness wasn't conscious, nor was it something that could be tamed. Baby Doll was strange, that was for certain, but there was nothing wrong with her mind. And for the first time ever, Rocket felt certain that Baby Doll could, in time, be brought back, and if that was so, then she wasn't insane.

For you can't capture a rabid wolf and train it to be approachable. But a wild owl can be caught and tamed, if only you have the patience to discover a way to contact the ghost that lives inside. Some were like the wolf, Rocket decided. Ferocious, gone, and untamable, while others, like Baby Doll, could be reached in time by the outside world. Because the wolves are, have always been, and always will be wild, but a dog's temper, once tame, can never truly disappear.

"You know something, Baby Doll," Rocket whispered, her mood changing as she slipped out of her tree and landed with a thump on the dewy grass. She crouched before Baby Doll, looking into the cloudy blue eyes that stared back without seeing her true face. "What do you know? You're a strange girl, Baby Doll. What do you see when you look at us that way?"

Baby Doll blinked. Something strange was happening to her vision; a sort of fogging and unfogging, as her eyes, wide open, tried to focus on what was really there to see. The world was dim and hazy, lost in a murkiness that was thick and resistant and made no sense. Then came the flash, a blinding zigzag shooting across her eyes. Then everything became clear.

"Say it again," she requested in a low voice. Her words, though spoken so low that they were difficult to hear, hard to make out, were clear and free of their usual trembling quality. Her eyes were attentive, clear, and watchful. She stood up, propelling herself to her feet with her hands. "I don't know what you just said. Say it again, please," she pleaded. Rocket stood up as well, speechless. Her eyes were wide open.

"Where is Ariana?" Baby Doll asked, looking questioningly at Rocket. She began walking along the hillside between the apple trees, her head tilted up so that she could watch the night sky. "My sister, where is she?" She appeared anxious that the question be answered. Rocket stammered, not knowing what to say. Did Baby Doll wish for the presence of this unknown person, or was she looking for reassurance that she did not exist?

"I – I don't know," Rocket admitted softly. Thoughts ran wild in her head. "_Did _you have a sister?" Something clenched in Baby Doll's mind, like a cold, iron fist. Her stomach knotted up. The vision of the little girl, the one that cropped up in so many times and places, was the one thing that she felt certain she hadn't imagined. Was this, too, all simply a vision? She stopped walking suddenly, looking at Rocket with wide, frightened eyes; luminous blue clouds that glowed when struck by the eerie moonshine.

"She's gone, isn't she," she whispered in an agonized voice. Her small, slender hand clamped down upon the scratchy branch of the apple tree that she had sat in only days previously. "She's gone! Blue took her! And now she'll never come back. Never, ever, ever . . ." her soft, insubstantial voice broke and she trailed off, gritting her teeth against tears. Her pale face had gone suddenly ashen, and her whole body shook with silent distress.

Rocket scrambled for a way to sooth the frantic girl's worries. Looking upon Baby Doll in the shadow of fear, she realized for a brief moment the true meaning of what it was like to see a ghost. Baby Doll, with the light of the full moon shining on her face, looked more ethereal than ever. Though her dreamlike world made her seem already strange, on this night so pale, with smooth silvery skin that sparkled in the starlight, there was an aura about her that gave her an unearthly appearance. Like the owls, she seemed . . . inhuman, somehow, Rocket thought with a shudder. Not a ghost, she thought, not exactly, but rather like something found in the mist-filled, ghostly world of a dream.

"Who was Ariana?" The question escaped Rocket's mouth before she could stop it. She bit her lip hard, anxiously watching Baby Doll's face for a dramatic change. But none came; she continued to stand still, staring straight past Rocket as if she didn't exist. Ariana. She struggled to see the vision, the apparition that the name belonged to. But there was nothing. She could recall nothing. It was as if the girl, along with her name, had vanished upon Baby Doll's return. She was gone.

"I – I can't remember," Baby Doll whispered, her voice cracked and barely audible. Her words vanished immediately into the air, uncertain, never to be seen again. Impossible to tell if they had really existed, like the shadow of a cloud, present, and the vanished without a trace. Where had they come from, and where were they going? From eternity to eternity, arriving before they departed, existent without existing.

"Was she real," Baby Doll whimpered softly, "or just a dream? Everything that seems real is a dream, and everything that seems a dream is real. Or – or is it the other way around? It's all backwards. Oh Rocket, I'm so confused!" The younger girl spoke with such pain in her voice that Rocket felt sorry for her. "I want to go back! I want to go home!" And Rocket's curiosity was sparked, along with a feeling of hope that she could maybe do something to help.

"Back to where?" she asked curiously, stepping forward a few feet. She laid a hand carefully on the child's trembling shoulder. "Baby Doll, where did you come from?" And for the first time, she was sincerely interested, interested in the background of a girl whose mind was unstable, hardly there. Sweet Pea would laugh at her. But perhaps, if she only knew enough about the girl, then maybe there would be a way to comfort her in her confusion. Baby Doll wasn't insane, anyone could see that; she was just a bit . . . unfocused. But who on earth wasn't? Didn't _everybody _have the right to abandon the world and simply . . . live in his or her dreams?

"I don't know." The helpless, pleading voice had never sounded so alone. "I don't know exactly where, only that it was better than this. It was a different place, a better place; a place that made _sense. _But maybe that was a dream, too. I want to stop living in these dream worlds! I want to come back, and have everything make sense again! Either that, or I don't want to be here at all. One or the other; I'm tired."

Baby Doll _was _tired. The effort it took to pull herself back was exhausting, and it left her weak and confused. It was almost as bad as not knowing: almost, but not quite. Wasn't there any way to make sense of it all? There were too many dreams that felt real, and not enough realities that _were _real. She was tired of dragging herself from one world to the next, the whole time not knowing if it were the right world to be in.

"So find Ariana," Baby Doll pleaded, her voice still a hoarse, dry whisper. "Find her, and I will come back. And when you find her, tell her how much trouble she's caused; if she hadn't gone in the first place, then none of this would have happened." Well, that changes things, Rocket thought, watching Baby Doll contemplatively. The girl seemed to be fading out, exiting reality once again after a rare and sudden outburst of sanity. When she would next emerge from the haze, no one knew.

"When you find Ariana, tell her," Baby Doll murmured, her grasp on the branch of the apple tree beginning to weaken as she once again slipped away through the fingers of the world that she had given such difficult attempts to remain part of. Her eyes fell in and out of focus, crossing and blinking until a severe headache threatened to override her. She was exhausted, struggling to remain conscious enough to say one last thing.

"Tell her what?" Rocket asked intently, moving forward slightly to better hear the fading voice. "Tell her what, Baby Doll?" She stared straight into Baby Doll's glazing eyes. Baby Doll shuddered, trembling as she was pulled back almost all the way under. Determined to stay awake for one second more, she took a deep, ragged breath, seeming to waver in the strange, hazy lands between existence and dreaming.

"Tell her . . ."

"What, Baby Doll, tell her _what?" _But Baby Doll had once again fallen away into the mist of uncertainty that held her captive, bound in place by her own mind. It was as if she were trapped within a real prison, one with high cement walls and barbed wire coils surrounding it. The heavily guarded perimeter of her brain hid what was really there. All she had to do was find the right chink in the wall, the cut in the wire, and wriggle herself out. All she needed to do was set herself free.

In what Baby Doll sensed to be her last moment of wakefulness for some time, she pulled herself painfully to the surface for one last, brief moment, and looked up helplessly at Rocket. Her expression was pitiful, pleading. Help me, she seemed to be saying; make it end. The blue eyes stared into the green until something in the depths of the cloudy pair seemed to vanish, and Baby Doll stood with one hand upon the scratchy grey bark of the old apple tree, her eyes clouded and blank.

Her vision grew strange and shiny. She could still see Rocket standing in front of her, looking with anxiety and sorrow at something beyond her right shoulder. She could see the apple trees all around them, and she could see the darkness, through which shone the light of the moon and the stars. All this remained visible to her, yet as she slipped further away into the darkness of her own mind, she found that one view of this world varied greatly from another.

Things began to alter in her vision, twirling and bubbling and disordering until everything was one large, colorful blur. It spun faster and faster, spreading to the very corners of her eyes, swirling into a spiral of brightness that made her dizzy and disoriented. At last the spinning grew so rapid that she had to close her eyes; but it was even worse there. At great length it all came to a sudden end; a large shattering, an explosion into blackness, and her vision returned stretched and shiny.

There was a brief moment of silence, whole, peaceful, and complete. Baby Doll let out an involuntary sigh, looking up at the strangely shimmering moon. Staring in silence at the night sky, she was mildly aware that Rocket was watching her intently. Then, in the remote background that she was vaguely conscious of, Baby Doll heard a loud, high-pitched wailing break into the corners of the night.

It was common procedure, when more girls arrived, to set off the siren in the great hall. The loud, piercing sound was meant to call all of the inmates to the hall, where they were forced to line up on each and every side of the room and watch as the new arrivals marched nervously through the gates. It was Blue's way of calling the place to order and making the girls show humility; it also provided an excellent opportunity to take the roll call. And while some were confused and unable to grasp the reason for the assembly, the majority of the crowd missed out not on Blue's full intentions. They knew what he was up to.

Baby Doll knew in some part of her mind that Rocket had dragged her quickly up out of the apple orchard on the hillside and into the building. Standing now on the left side of the hall between two girls whose names and faces she could not recall, she found herself to be cold, hungry, and mildly frightened. Her fear was nothing compared to that of the new girls. Baby Doll saw this in their faces, and wondered from where their dread was originating.

There were many this time. Eighty new arrivals, all girls, all in their late teens or early twenties, before entering the building had been roughly pushed and coaxed and poked and shoved into order; lines five across and eight long. Fresh distress showed clearly upon each of their faces. They were wet, some of them, and most were shivering nervously.

Dressed in inadequate clothing, as Baby Doll had been that night so long ago, they had been easily soaked by the rain. It always seemed to rain at Lippincott House, especially on the night of new arrivals. They were freezing, most of them, and struggling to not show it. But their hard efforts did not pay off, as any attempt to hide their discomfort was in vain, and the general feeling in the room was one of despair.

In this sort of crowd, it was easy to sort out the only two variations of girls that were present. Most of the girls were hiding their faces desperately in their hands, sobbing loudly in hopelessness and misery, but every once in a great while there appeared a girl with more to her than that. These ones were like cornered animals, quailed and ready to strike at any moment, glancing around desperately for any means of escape. There were the fighters and the submissive, and each earned their role well at Lippincott House. However, even soldiers have to someday admit defeat, and an outsider will occasionally wonder at the fact that no one who passed through the gates of the asylum was ever seen again in the outside world.

The guards, who were trained well and hard throughout the years, soon began randomly choosing certain girls and yanking them roughly from the crowd. Once separated from her peers, each girl was cast swiftly and mercilessly into a small group of bystanders, who were expected to deal with the newcomer accordingly. Baby Doll took note of this somewhere inside her head, while the other two thirds of her brain remained oblivious. She did notice _some _things, at least.

There came a time when Rocket and Baby Doll were handed their own outcast to cope with. The newcomer was small and shy, a girl of about fifteen at the very most. A thin, peaky face was framed with a sparse amount of light hair that seemed uncertain as to whether it wished to be brown or blonde in color. A pair of light brown eyes peeked out from under this scant crop of hair, and the nearly invisible eyebrows gave her the rather frightening appearance of one who was not entirely certain of what to do with her existence.

She was wearing a baggy brown sweater that was much too large for her thin frame, and hung off of her like a second coating of skin. This vision made her entire figure appear rather pitiful, and she seemed to be unfortunately aware of this disturbing factor of her character. She appeared mildly frightened, and was humming to herself softly by way of ineffective distraction. While Baby Doll had her internal doubts, Rocket decided at once that she liked this stranger whose name she did not yet even know, and settled the matter at once by asking a very simple question.

"What is your name?" she inquired pleasantly, looping her arm through the girl's and beckoning for Baby Doll to do the same. The vacant girl remained unaware, however, and the new one was clearly somewhat startled by this lively introduction to this – that is to say her – new world. She blinked several times, rather blankly too, it might be added, and was perhaps under the impression that she was in a madhouse, which, unhappy to say, she most certainly was.

"Cashmere," she murmured at last, whispering the name through pale and innocuous lips. "Please. I want to go to sleep." While rather sudden and uncalled upon, such a request seemed perfectly logical to Rocket, who had in fact been silently seething at the injustice of the assembly, seeing as she wanted to get Baby Doll into bed right off. The only word which registered in the clouded and foggy mind of the seventeen year old girl was the one associated with the thing she wanted most: absence of thought. Rocket, merciful soul that she was, realized this and immediately took up arms, leading the girls up to the dormitory where the new Cashmere was to sleep . . . which happened to be their own room.

Once Cashmere had been installed in a bunk at the end of the long room, Rocket retrieved Baby Doll from the doorway, where she had been left standing alone and catatonic. Baby Doll felt a soft touch upon her arm, a faint tug upon her thin little cotton shirtsleeve, and actually turned her head to see Rocket standing there beside her, looking down with an expression of maternal sadness over the loss of the poor girl's young soul. Smiling somewhat sadly, Rocket led Baby Doll gently over to the bed beside her own, and pulling back the covers, patted the mattress so that Baby Doll had no choice but to lie down.

She looked so young there, curled up on the bed in her too short, bunny-printed white cotton pajamas that Rocket's heart went out to her, and she was struck with a sudden idea. She covered the younger girl carefully with the blankets, and then, reaching under her own pillow and fumbling for a minute with her hand all tangled up in the pillow case, she came up with a small stuffed black bear that had been her sister's . . . or so she had been told. The fact that she did not know this for certain struck her suddenly, and she was overcome with a wave of sadness. But here, it did not matter, the topic of shame; she let one tear escape and slide slowly down her cheek, to drop like a little ball of salty wetness into her locks of auburn hair.

Baby Doll, who had sat up brightly with an expression of interest at the sight of the teddy bear, took great interest in the sight of the single tear. She cocked her head quizzically, and then slowly, hesitantly, she stretched out to touch the tiny droplet. Then she touched her own hair, appeared slightly confused, and sighed heavily in a way that made Rocket's heart ache. Another idea struck the young babysitter, and she rummaged around in her bedside table drawer for a minute or so before finding her little silver hairbrush, which she hardly ever used.

Scooting over onto Baby Doll's bed, she handed the girl the teddy bear. Baby Doll was delighted, and bounced the little bear on her knees for a few minutes before hugging it tightly to her chest. Rocket waited until silence had settled in, and then she began to gently brush Baby Doll's silky blonde curls. To her great surprise, the teenager did not even start, but continued to sit still with the bear held to her chest as if the whole ordeal were completely natural and familiar to her. Unconsciously, Rocket began to hum a lullaby, and then stopped suddenly, aware of what she was doing.

"I used to brush Ariana's hair every night, and sing to her so that she would fall asleep. The sound of rain made her restless," Baby Doll said after a minute. At this point of rarity, Rocket forgot to be startled, and simply answered like a normal human being. The quiet in the room was interrupted by the soft sound of rain pattering upon the roof of the little room. The sound was homelike and comforting, and brought a wave of happy memories flooding back to both girls as it went on slowly, surely, in the darkness of the quiet night.

"I had a little sister too, once," Rocket murmured, still carefully brushing the silky, soft, golden hair. It was so like the little lock of Ebony's that hung about her neck in the old, silver locket. It was that naturally kind of curly, not wild, messy, tangled curls at all, but gentle waves, crimped perfectly and naturally together. Rocket unthinkingly tugged on her own coarse straightness that was rough and flyaway in comparison.

"What happened to her?" Baby Doll wondered, her melodic voice clear and sweet, unclouded for once. Her voice was like the rain, Rocket decided. Sometimes it was clean and pure, falling gently down upon the listener's ears like spring water. But sometimes it was drizzled, misty and uncertain. Her tone made clear the condition of her thoughts.

"She died in a train wreck with my parents when I was nine," Rocket answered softly, another tear conjured by the memory. The topic of her baby sister ended there, for Baby Doll allowed her a moment of respectful silence, to remember. Rocket was strangely proud of how much the girl knew about such things, and at such a young age, too. She was silent for a minute, also, and allowed Baby Doll to curl up under the blankets while she put the brush carefully away.

"Do you know any lullabies?" Baby Doll asked softly, lying on her back with her arms over the covers. Her periwinkle eyes were so hopeful that Rocket hadn't the heart to refuse, though embarrassing memories of former songs continued to torment her eleven years later. She scoured her memory for a minute, wondering which one would suit. One came to mind along with a memory that was both sweet and sorrowful: her mother rocking her to sleep as a young child, singing her slowly to sleep.

"Only one, but I don't remember the words," Rocket whispered. Baby Doll's eyes remained wide open as she smiled happily. Rocket had never seen her in this mood before, quiet and seemingly filled with peace. She wondered vaguely why this was true. Baby Doll whispered back through the twilit room.

"That's all right. I still want to hear it." And so Rocket quietly began to hum a lullaby, the one that her mother had sung to her long, long ago. And as she hummed, she wondered about Baby Doll. What had happened to her to make her so strange? Had she too, long ago, once had someone to sing to her? And if so, where had that person gone? More importantly, why had they gone, leaving the helpless little girl all on her own?

Baby Doll's eyelashes slowly fluttered closed, and upon her face rested an expression of peace. She appeared for once to be truly at rest. Her breathing grew slower and slower until Rocket was certain that she was asleep. Yet she continued to hum the wordless lullaby long after the girl had fallen asleep, not for Baby Doll's sake, not for her own, but for a much larger need, one that lived on in the wind and the sun and the trees, in the stars. It was a need that she was unconsciously determined to fulfill.

She hummed for the sake of the world.


	5. Lingering Song (The Voices Never Leave)

**A/N: I apologize for any spelling errors. I originally wrote this with the asylum being named "Lippincott House" instead of "Lennox House" and I forgot to fix it during my editing. R&R!**

_Why do I dream?_

Baby Doll was standing in a fancy floral garden, surrounded by neatly trimmed hedges and well-weeded flowerbeds with her right hand laid gracefully on the edge of an ornate marble fountain. The water, like the time, trickled away slowly, with no one to check and see just how fast it was vanishing. A cardinal sat chirping on the steeple of the fountain, twittering out its sweet song. A swallow swooped across the morning sky.

"So, Alice," said a sweet, melodic voice from behind her, "What time shall we expect the Duchess's arrival?" Baby Doll turned with a rustling of skirts, and realized with intrigue that she was wearing a cumbersome, frilly, Victorian era-style gown. It was periwinkle blue satin, trimmed with white crocheted lace, and so long that it hid her shoes. Her boots were button-up, black as a nugget of split coal, and shiny. As she turned, her hair, styled into smooth ringlets that fell past her shoulders, flew out behind her like a fan.

"Around midday, I expect," she heard a voice answer. It took her a moment of confusion to realize that it was her own. Who or what Alice was and what she, Baby Doll, was doing answering to that name mystified her. Who was this Duchess, and why did she know with such certainty when she would be arriving? She knew not who the Duchess was, but at the same time, she did. The word conjured up a picture in her mind, the vision of a young lady with long brown curls and a wise, gentle smile that hid nothing.

The girl beside Baby Doll nodded agreeably. She, too, was dressed in a ball-like gown, though hers was white instead of blue. She was young, probably in her early twenties, Baby Doll reasoned, with sparkling, fun-filled green eyes and bright red hair that was held back from her freckled face in a single braid. Her nose was small, and her mouth prim and proper, yet her lips held a small smile that could not been seen from a distance. Her voice was vaguely familiar.

"Wonderful," she said, her smile growing. "And where is your father, Alice dear? I had hoped so much to meet him." Had she now? Well, who was it that she was planning to meet? Baby Doll's father was dead, long gone. This girl would never meet him. Still, Baby Doll heard her voice – Alice's voice – her voice? speaking to the red-haired girl again.

"He's over by the cabana, talking to the Cheshire," she said with assurance, while at the same time wondering wildly who was the Cheshire and what on earth a cabana was. "Come, Margaret. I will introduce you to him." Margaret? Very well then, whatever was going to be would be what it was, nothing more, and surely nothing less.

"Gladly," said Margaret, following a confused Baby Doll and a confident Alice through a maze of garden hedges and rose beds over to the cabana. Neither girl spoke, the rather comfortable silence broken only when Margaret paused to compliment the tulips that surrounded yet another fountain. As they passed other small groups who were strolling about the garden, Baby Doll called greetings to strangers that she had never met but also people who seemed familiar, somehow. She was even at one point, to her great perplexity, swept into the arms of a tall middle-aged woman who was, apparently, her Aunt Sally.

After this befuddling embrace, the garden was nearly empty. They were still surrounded by hedges and fountains, but the world seemed strangely silent. Baby Doll continued walking decidedly, unhurriedly, upon the unfamiliar and yet familiar paths. She had, after a minute or so of puzzled thought, decided not to worry about becoming lost. Alice knew the way.

Abruptly, Margaret and Baby Doll were startled by a white, fluffy rabbit running across their path. Nearly tripping over the poor, frightened animal, Margaret shrieked an alarm. Baby Doll, though admittedly rather surprised, did not act with such childishness. Instead, her interest was drawn by the fact that there was something strange about the rabbit. It was wearing a bright crimson waistcoat with brass buttons, and holding a large silver pocket watch . . .

"Excuse me," Baby Doll said rather hurriedly, ducking through a hole in the hedge to leave Margaret stranded. She ran through the garden, tripping over her dress hem as she struggled to keep the rabbit in sight. Women in elegant dresses stared, and men dressed in tidy black and grey suits guffawed at the sight of her holding her skirts up nearly above her knees. As she ran, she heard herself repeating one word over and over.

"Rabbits, rabbits, rabbits . . . rabbits . . . rabbits . . ." and that word, the breathy, airless whisper that seemed almost like a plea, began to fade as another voice interrupted her. It was another familiar voice, one that was recognizable in a comforting sort of way. It meant that there was something real, something sensible in the mess that the world had suddenly become.

"Baby Doll . . . Baby Doll . . ." the voice whispered at first, and then became steadily louder as Baby Doll flailed restlessly in bed, still muttering the word over and over. Occasionally she spoke loudly, almost in a shout, but most often her voice was soft, pleading, and nearly inaudible.

"Rabbits, rabbits . . ." the other voice grew vaguely impatient, though slow and sleepy. Baby Doll, stuck in the hazy dimness between dreams and reality, did not understand. Her eyes were halfway open; staring straight ahead, she could see the garden path and the hedges as she ran. But there was something behind the vision, almost as if a nearly transparent image had been plastered upon the dream. If she focused her eyes just right, she could see the bedroom, and a tall person standing beside her bed.

"Baby Doll, for heaven's sake, wake up," Rocket mumbled sleepily, drowsily shaking the muddled girl to her senses. Baby Doll made a sudden effort, and pulled herself unwillingly from sleep. The lamps were out in the room; the only light came from the half moon, which was visible through the windows. Rocket's eyes were almost closed, and she yawned.

"Rabbits," Baby Doll stated clearly, insistent that her words be heeded. If no one knew about the rabbits, then no one could help her find them. And it was critical that they be found, that their secret be discovered. Rocket put a hand on Baby Doll's shoulder soothingly, struggling to stay awake.

"Yes, yes," she murmured. "Rabbits. Rabbits. We'll talk about the rabbits in the morning, but for now we have to sleep. Quiet, Baby Doll, and go back to sleep." Baby Doll nodded gratefully, happy that someone had listened to her. Rocket, satisfied that she had done her job, stumbled sleepily back to bed, already lost in a wakeful dream, but Baby Doll lay staring at the ceiling for some time, repeating her dream in her head so as not to lose some of the importance that it held.

After a while, curiosity overcame her, and she sat up suddenly in the darkness. Lifting her covers up, she swung her feet out silently onto the cold floor, and winced when she felt how chilly it was. She stood up, and made her way quietly across the aisle to the open window beside Rocket's bed. Pausing for a moment, with a wistful little glance in the direction of her sleeping friend, she put her hands out upon the windowsill. She wanted to bring Rocket with her, but she was afraid that the older, sensible girl would refuse. She must find the rabbits.

In the next minute, she somehow managed to maneuver herself into a sitting position upon the windowsill, her bare feet dangling out into the open air. Swinging her legs restlessly, she looked out for a moment at the eerie moon that cast wavering shadows into all corners of the night. Then, gripping the sill hard with her small fingers, she dropped down several feet onto the rough shingles of the small eastern wing of the asylum. She landed on her feet, lightly as a cat, making no sound at all, standing still for a moment to catch her unwary balance; and then she was struck with an idea: perhaps she could see the rabbits better from the roof.

From the roof of the east wing, it was possible to reach the wide brick chimney that travelled up the Lippincott House walls by leaning diagonally against the roof of the dormitory and sliding sideways with great care. Baby Doll's nimble feet somehow managed to accomplish this great feat, and in a moment she was standing before the great chimney. She surveyed the series of bricks for a moment, and apparently decided that they were safe to touch, for in a short moment she abandoned her rather precarious footing and began to climb. There were just enough finger and toe holes for her to safely reach the next level of rooftop, and she disembarked shakily, slightly frightened but perfectly all right in all other senses.

She was now on the top level of the building, clinging to the splintery shingles as if her life depended on it, which indeed it did. However, she was perfectly capable of maintaining her hold upon the rooftop, and scrambled up the slant to stand astride the pointy top of the roof. Why she did not fall immediately, it is impossible to say. Holding out her arms for balance, she began to walk along the ridgepole.

Anyone passing by the walls of Lippincott House that night would have gone home with quite the story to tell, for they would discover a most unbelievable spectacle to behold. Atop the roof of the gargantuan black building, standing still upon the ridgepole, there was to be seen a small figure, ghostly pale and dressed in white, perfectly balanced. An ethereal sight it was, and to see that little moonlit figure gave one a lonely feeling inside, so mournful it was. It wasn't strange at all, but sad and forlorn. That little lost shadow of a girl saddened one.

Baby Doll herself had fallen again into her customary state of uncertainty. The cool night breeze lifted her hair from her shoulders, blowing it out behind her like a silky blonde fan. The moonlight gave her a strange feeling inside, and tilting her head back to look at the stars, she sighed heavily. The wind chilled her, but in a good way, and she was compelled to lift her arms and let the air blow through her pajamas, chilling her skin.

Then she leaned forward slightly, and with the moonlight illuminating her face for a brief moment, she leaned into the midnight air. A particularly strong gust of wind lifted her up, and she shut her eyes tightly, expecting at any moment to go plunging straight to the ground. But the wild night wind held her up, and she was aware of a peculiar floating sensation. She opened her eyes, and was delighted to see that she was flying.

It wasn't real flying, of course; she was simply falling quite slowly. But the slowness was a strange sort of slowness, and she was quite certain that she was swooping and gliding as easily as the birds. It was a graceful sort of fall, and, like all things associated with Baby Doll, it was unearthly. Elegant, flowing wind floated her gently to the ground. She drifted slowly downwards, her arms outstretched, her eyes gently closed, caught up in a beam of moonlight.

When her feet lightly touched the ground, she opened her eyes again to behold a familiar sight. She was standing in front of the large wooden doors leading into the great hall, on the gravel path facing downwards, with the gigantic, twisted iron gate directly at the bottom of the hill. The moonlight cast eerie shadows upon the ground where the gnarly apple trees stood, and the dew sprinkled grass shone silver. Baby Doll took a deep breath of the night air, and looking back up at the rooftop, she recalled seeing a small white animal, not unlike a rabbit, scurrying away into the forest.

With a sudden burst of inspiration, Baby Doll began to run in the direction of the large, looming gate. Her bare feet flew through the damp grass, and she stumbled twice. When she reached the entrance, she felt no surprise upon her discovery of the open gate. Looking deftly about her once more, casting a worried sort of glance at the shadowy old apple trees, she quietly slipped through the little gap in the iron bars. And she was free.

It was the first time in three years that Baby Doll had been outside the walls of her prison, and she did not quite know what to do with her newly granted freedom. Outside, she was uncertain as to where she should venture, lest she fall into the hands of something sinister. The old forest loomed above her, tangled, black, and wicked. Baby Doll gave an involuntary shudder, and longed wistfully for the warmth and comforting safety of the familiar dormitory that she had left behind.

Her sorrow could not last long, however, for just as she was beginning to despair, the much-desired creature that she had seen from the rooftop came leaping and bounding into sight. The snowshoe hare skipped and scuttled into view from Beneath a wild rhododendron, the deep violet flowers of which were jus beginning to fade and fall away as crumpled brown leaves and dust. Right beside a little grove of young spruce trees lay a bank of moss; here the animal paused, sniffing the air with its twitching pink nose. It evidently caught the scent of Baby Doll on the breeze, for it turned its wide red eyes towards her for a moment before scampering off into the depths of the dark forest, where Baby Doll followed it without a second thought.

There was a dim little path leading away into the woods, clearly a game trail of some sort. This Baby Doll followed, led on by the rabbit and the dim light of the moon. The little animal seemed to have gotten an idea of escape into its head, for it went hurdling out of sight the moment that it recognized pursuit. Baby Doll followed as best she could, stumbling now and then over a tree root or a small pebble that lay most inconveniently in the path.

The forest was damp and dark at this time of night, and smelled vaguely of radishes and dirt, with a hint of pine needles. Harmless rodents scurried by, and an occasional late bird swooped in from the canopy on its way home to its nest. Deer nibbled at moss and nameless weeds, viewing the rabbit and its pursuer through wide doe eyes before springing swiftly away with delicate grace. In short, it was not the sort of place that one typically finds fearsome. However, in Baby Doll's uncertain state of mind, it was nothing short of terrifying.

Frightful creatures leapt out into the path, startling her so that she screamed loudly in fright. But she was running to fast to stop, and she tore right through them. They crouched before her, ready to pounce, only to explode into wisps of silvery smoke when she got too close. The trees swelled to twice their normal size, branches reaching out to snag her hair and clothes. They ripped out into the trail, swiping at her hands and face is if determined to cut her. She felt the ragged branches lashing her across her eyes, and squeezed them shut tightly, still running faster than ever.

She ran faster and faster, her eyes popping open to be sure that the white rabbit was still in sight. It was, and she fancied that she saw it draw from the depths of its red waistcoat a large silver watch on a chain, grinding its teeth angrily when it saw the time. She was startled also by how late it was. Why, it was nearly midnight! Mother would be angry with her for staying out so late when she should be watching Ariana. She would scold _dreadfully_. Oh dear, such a bother!

And just like that, the world transformed again. She was still running, but now along the metal grates within a clock tower. Wheels and gears churned all around her, turning faster and faster until she grew dizzy at the sight of them and had to close her eyes. But she couldn't go about blindly; the gears were rolling down the grate, intent upon running her down! And they were crossing in and out of her way, as if determined to catch her up within their sharp little spikes of metal. At last one did, despite her attempts to dodge it, and she was hurdling through a dark tunnel, and then she was falling . . . falling . . .

And then she landed, and came to with a smack. The hole that she had been stuck in was not, in fact, a dark tunnel within a clock tower but a rabbit hole in which her foot had been caught, causing her to trip and fall face first onto the forest floor. The white rabbit had disappeared, presumably into the pit that had just initiated so much pain in her ankle. Dazed, she attempted to stand up, but quickly sat back down again with a little cry of pain.

Her ankle burned, and she was cold, lost, sleepy, and scared. Even a very brave, entirely sane person would have found it hard to cope with that situation, and for the panicky half-mad girl in the bunny-printed pajamas, it was nearly impossible to take in. The smartest thing to do was to do nothing at all, and Baby Doll seemed to sense this, for she made no move to get up again. She had no energy, and pain and lack of sleep erased any hopeful ideas or plans that she had about returning to Lippincott House that night. And so she did the only thing she knew how to do: she curled up into a little ball against a tree trunk and cried.

WWWWW

When Baby Doll was woken at last from a fit of restless slumber, it was to a series of unintelligible shouts. She blinked heavily several times, and then opened her eyes to see sunlight streaming through the treetops. Sitting up quickly, she threw an anxious glance about her, only to relax greatly when she discovered that all frightening things of the night had vanished, to be replaced with the gentler sounds and sights of the new dawn. She gave a sigh of thanks and relief, and sat up against the tree trunk to assess the damage done by her nighttime escapade.

She was cold and damp; wet, she supposed, with the sprinklings of rain that even the thick canopy of leaves above could not shelter her from. Her pajamas were covered in a generous quantity of dirt, and she could sense that her face was smudged and grimy. A large blue caterpillar investigated her wrist, tickling her skin with its tiny, feathery feet. All in all, it wasn't a bad turnout of her adventures.

She made to scramble to her feet, but was again halted with a quiet squeal of forgetfulness. In her speedy examination, she had overlooked her injured ankle. Flopping back down onto the wet ground, she lifted her pant leg to find the ankle somewhat swollen, but otherwise unhurt. She groaned in exasperation, and then became conscious of several voices calling to her.

"Baby Doll! Baby Doll! Where are you?" Ignoring the surging pain in her ankle, Baby Doll leaped up with a delighted cry that brought the exhausted searchers flooding in from all directions. They were soon gathered in a circle around the much grateful lost girl, patting her on the back, hugging her, and firing questions at her like jubilant cannonballs of curiosity. Though unable to reply because of a mind setting that rendered her mute, Baby Doll was ecstatic, and clearly recognized each and every one of the eighteen trusted girls who had been delegated with the mission of locating her.

"My, aren't we glad to see you!" Rocket exclaimed, pulling the suddenly overwhelmed teenager bodily from the crowd and into a sisterly bear hug that left her quite breathless. "We've been searching for you for days!" This sentence startled Baby Doll, who, though she assumed that her slumber had only lasted for one night, in truth had no idea for how long she had been absent. Tired and admittedly rather disoriented by the excitement of the clamoring crowd, she could do nothing more to respond than to blink blearily at them all.

Rocket recognized defeat and fatigue showing through the relieved and happy smile, and without further ado, Baby Doll was borne through the forest by the excited hunters, who formed a chair with their arms when they discovered the condition of Baby Doll's ankle. She discovered as she was carried that her discovery could not have been too much of a bother, for she had left behind her a crazed path of trampled weeds and broken branches; surely accounting for her wakeful nightmares of trees attacking her. Unconsciously, she put a hand to her cheek and winced, and could see in the reflection within a shallow puddle that her face was decorated with scratches of all shapes and sizes. Rocket clucked like a ruffled mother hen.

"Yes, well, that's what you get, little missy. Running off like that, I'm surprised that you weren't killed. There's a reason for this place, however horrible it may be. I've always wondered what its use could possibly be, and I just figured it out – it's so that people like _you _don't do more harm to themselves than has already been done!" Though enlightening in their intentions, Rocket's words stung. Perhaps Baby Doll had been too much in a daze to notice her condition to an extent, but Rocket's proclamation had illuminated it rather harshly. It startled her. As one who is in the fog is scarce to notice it, Baby Doll had never quite known who she was.

_People like you. _The difference implied there hurt the teenager more than Rocket could know. People are under the impression that so-called insane people have no feelings. They are sadly mistaken. In fact, to make a point, Baby Doll felt things more deeply even than some fully conscious beings. Truth being told without reserve; when she was hidden in the haze, she could nearly always be recalled by a powerful emotion of sorts.

Baby Doll frowned slightly, knitting her nearly invisible eyebrows together in contemplative thought. Her childishly full lips pressed hard into a thin little line of discomfort, and her light eyes flashed angrily, but she did not dare to say a word even if the power of speech had been with her just then, for she sensed in her heart that Rocket was right. The injustice of it smarted like a stinging slap, but she could not show evidence of wounded pride besides to hunch her shoulders over silently and push her tangled, twig-ridden hair into her eyes. Rocket was silent for the remainder of the trip.

As they wound through the twisted forest trails, Baby Doll could see that she had not come any great distance at all from the walls of Lippincott House. In fact, it was just shy of ten minutes after her discovery that they arrived back at the gates that barricaded the way. As Baby Doll looked up at the looming black fortress that rested upon the hill, she had the strange and sudden feeling of an escaped prisoner being dragged back to jail for an even longer sentence than before. Rocket confirmed this, and voiced her thoughts appropriately.

"It just makes you feel guilty, for some reason, doesn't it?" she asked, reflecting upon her own thoughts and what she could have done to make her feel so. The other girls gave a gratified murmur of assent; appreciative that Rocket had been able to put their own conflicting emotions into words. They were all strongly against going back inside. There was even a moment whence Rocket considered simply dropping all of her duties and retreating again into the concealment of the woods.

But that was not an option. Rocket was unable to explain to the other why it was impossible when they eagerly asked if they could remain outside, but she had a strange feeling of a duty yet to be fulfilled. Rocket often had these faint hints of what was yet to come, and while Sweet Pea scoffed at the idea, calling her naïve and over imaginative, Rocket referred to it in her mind as a sixth sense. Occasionally she would wonder if that was all that obscured Baby Doll's mind as well.

Rocket pushed and shoved her way through the small group of girls until she reached the gate, and searching a small keypad for the right code, she typed in a sequence of unrelated letters, and the gate swung silently open. Baby Doll cringed and shut her eyes as they began to walk up the path, but a sudden thought occurred to her, and her long, fan-like lashes popped quickly open. She began to stare up at the roof with such intensity that the others permitted it a hurried squint as well, wondering what she was gaping at so attentively, but the strange one with the faraway eyes gave nothing away.

Hardly had they entered the building when Blondie and Amber converged upon them. Truth be told, both Rocket and Baby Doll had been anticipating an enthusiastic welcome of some sort (Baby Doll unconsciously so), but this appeared to be nowhere in Blondie's realm of thought. Instead, she bore upon her face a worried and slightly downcast expression that could bode no good. Amber, too, appeared solemn.

Baby Doll leaped down from her chair, disregarding her injury, and approached the welcome committee with a querying spot of light in her eyes. A single teardrop leaked out of Blondie's eye and slid slowly down her cheek, and she shook her head sadly. Rocket elbowed her way through the crowd to them, and put a hand on Baby Doll's shoulder.

"What's wrong? What is it, Blondie?" she demanded forcefully. Blondie gulped and shook her head again, pushing her chocolate brown hair out of her eyes with a miserable little whimper. Amber shushed her soothingly, and then turned back to the other two. She opened her mouth and then shut it again several times before speaking in a tight, strained voice.

"It's Sweet Pea," she whispered sadly. "She's gone."


	6. Barren Smiles And Evil Grins

_I was slowly returning to them; they could tell. It was always nothing, of course, that brought on sanity within me. They hastened to defy me, but what of such a thing was to be ignored? So crashed the waves upon the shore of my brain, washing up long-dead memories at which the vultures picked away. The rejuvenated hope and life within my soul was like a wineglass, so breakable that one touch might smash it all. _

It was nearly Christmas. Lennox House's outermost corridors were bitter and drafty, chilled winds howling in the chimneys and through the cracks in the weakly battened walls. The east wing corridor in particular was freezing; lined on the left with frosted windows once it rounded the corner from the front of the building, it wrapped around the middle story of the main structure. Glass windowpanes rattled in the sub-zero hallways, glaring their reflection of bright sunlight down on the snow-covered hillside.

Yet inside the center and lower corridors, all was warm and cozy. It was really quite astonishing, the controversy between the upper and lower floors of the asylum. The top five levels were reserved for the patients, and neglect and disarray showed clearly. From there downwards, creaky, rotting wood and blown-out candles turned to kerosene lamps and red velvet tapestries. Golden-threaded carpets wound their way through the polished cherry and brass halls, and crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling. Here, cheery fires burned all winter long to drive back the cold.

It had been nearly a month since Sweet Pea's disappearance, and despite Blue's insistence that she was simply on holiday the entire conscious population of the asylum had begun to take note of her absence. They possessed a much greater quantity of intelligence than Blue allowed them credit for; no one at Lippincott House simply left on a holiday. Everyone remembered the quiet, strong girl who had helped them through so much. Rocket had restrained her fury at Blue's nonchalance for long enough, and was beginning to grow resentful of his casual indifference. She was prepared to lash out at the slightest provocation; not only that, but Baby Doll was beginning to slip.

A cozy heat was spreading through the lower corridors of the building, the hazy naphtha lamps glowing steadily in their brass wall brackets. The soft crimson carpet lay thick and heavy along the floors, muffling Amber's footsteps as she tread cautiously down the corridor. She had been prone to insomnia since the age of three, and developed a habit of wandering about the building at night; hence her alertness at this particular hour of the night. She was not alone; on the upper floors, a large quantity of the girls took to drifting.

The lost ones huddled in corners in the drafty halls, curled up in pitiful little positions in their thin nightgowns and nightdresses. Alone, they sometimes sat, or in pairs; occasionally a group of them would gather in a small spot and simply sit there silent, not speaking. A room in the center of the top stories was tiled and empty, and echoed bare and silent. At least fifteen were to be found there, some sleeping, all ghostly pale in their bleached grey nightdresses.

But downstairs, all was warm and snug. The polished cherry and oaken walls gleamed in the dull lamplight, and as Amber dallied down the sloping corridors her fingers trailed lightly along the shining grain. Small tables were situated at irregular intervals within winding, twisting maze, each equipped with several candelabras and a basin of healthy fruit. At each one in succession Amber would pause, contemplative, preceding her decision to filch an apple or a banana.

After a lengthy half hour, Amber began to wonder of her destination. Despite the comfortable temperature, nighttime wanderings took their toll of exhaustion, and she was beginning to become chilled. Blue insisted upon identical clothing for the girls so that they would be obvious should they escape and been seen in the outside world. Because of this she wore the customarily knee-length, tee shirt-sleeved sailor-suit style cotton dress.

The fabric possessed a dull, moss green hue and hung limp and drab against her skin. On her feet she wore dull ebony ankle boots – heavy, clunky, unfashionable Brogans. Her once-white socks had long since bunched up at her ankles, and the lack of thick stockings was the cause of her chill. To top it all, her sleek chestnut hair hung down in drooping, lifeless ringlets to past her shoulders; the top few strands were held back with a tarnished silver hairclip.

Yet she stood tall and upright, her shoulders thrown back as a soldier's and her sharp chin raised defiantly. Her angular nose poked straight into the air, and her black-bronze eyes snapped with a fierce, burning light. It didn't matter whether Blue and Lippincott House stood forever or not; Amber was a fighter, and she would stand and fight forever against them, and she would survive. No matter who else was lost along the way, Amber would beat them all.

And perhaps her obstinacy was the reason that she discovered the room. Pausing hesitantly before yet another bowl of produce, she found her eyes drawn not to the fruit, but to a certain unidentifiable crack on the wall Beneath the lamp bracket. After a moment of contemplation, she ducked down to view the length of the fissure, and discovered that it ran from the base of the bracket all the way to the richly colored carpet. Amber found that quite odd indeed, and in a moment of wild experimentation, she gave the wall a little shove.

Immediately upon contact, the wall split into two halves along the fracture line and swung creakily inward. Amber, who had thrown herself backwards against the opposite side of the hallway, gaped in shock at the dark, door-size hole in what had just a moment ago been a solid wall. A rush of cold air met her as she took a hesitant step forward, peering into the blackness with straining eyes.

As her vision adjusted to the darkness, Amber could barely make out the vague, obscure contours of shelves lining the entrance to the newly discovered space. She ventured another foot or so forward, and met up with a dusky green carpet much like the one directly behind her. In fact, it felt much the same. Amber took a deep breath, and in the dim light of the oil lamps, she began to see.

Thousands upon thousands of bookshelves stretched for as far as her eyes could see in every direction. Novels, encyclopedias, leather-bound and gold, were stacked as high as the cavernous cathedral-like ceiling. From a single glance, Amber knew that more books lay on the shelf next to her than most of the girls at Lippincott House had ever seen. On the most part, the echoing room was shadowy and gloomy, but in the very center of the room, far away from where Amber stood, a hearth fire flickered and blazed.

Without hesitation, she turned and sprinted in the opposite direction.

WWWWW

"Rocket, come see this! You've got to see this! Come and see!" A glaringly bright light abruptly filled the lids of Rocket's closed eyes, rudely summoning her from the depths of some unremembered dream. Immediately alert, though rather uncomfortably, she sat up in bed, shielding her face with her hand. A hasty glance dispensed to either side displayed all she needed to know. The room was shadowy with the flat, colorless hues of the night, chilly and unwelcoming besides the flare of the electric lamp on the table beside her bed. Midnight was still upon them.

"Huh?" Rocket mumbled confusedly, fumbling in weary desperation with the light switch. In the glare of the false illumination stood Amber, still clad in her wilting green outfit with her shimmering hair pulled back like a little girl's. In her right hand she held another, softer lantern – one of the old naphtha lamps from downstairs. Her round, broad, blunt features held such an eager expression that Rocket vaguely wondered what had piqued the younger girl's interest

so completely.

"Rocket, come downstairs," Amber whispered urgently, leaning over to tug the sheet off with her free hand. A light breeze chilled Rocket's legs inside her white pajamas, flowing over the air in the coolness of pale moonshine. A slight shiver rocked her; the bedrooms were frigid enough without thick quilts for the beds, but the lack of insulation only added to their discomfort.

"I've found it!" Amber exclaimed excitedly, stretching out a hand in invitation. Rocket took it groggily and Amber pulled her to her feet. She sighed, looking into the younger girl's earnest face.

"Found what?" she muttered blearily. Amber grinned at her.

"The library."

WWWWW

Though the journey from the sixth floor dormitory down to the fifth landing proved uneventful, it was the final leg of the forbidden expedition that shortly became perilous. Upon reaching the fifth level, Amber and Rocket crept along the narrow, wooden passageway with especial attentiveness to that rather insurmountable number of creaky floorboards. All was, for the most part, fairly quiet, save the occasional drifting figure of nighttime loneliness. Yet peacefulness could not reign for long, and at the fourth corner they rounded, they were seized.

Amber let out a piercing shriek as Cillian, a hefty, burly guard in his late thirties, snatched her hair from behind and administered a sharp yank. Rocket, cunningly wearing a pixy cut, escaped such rough treatment but was lifted by the nape of her neck in lieu of her non-existent braids. Instead of grieving for her predicament, she wisely said nothing, and ruefully reflected upon the ingenuity of having each level of staircase built on an opposite side of the building. So, as making use of her only way of battle remaining to her person, she let out a long, low, and most alarmingly feline hiss.

"Shut up," a deep, gravelly voice growled in her ear. The breath tickled her, and made her shake her head in disgust. It was Wilmarth, Cillian's counterpart – though this particular ginger-haired man was known throughout the school for being slightly more lenient when it came to asylum policies. "What do you think you are, a fluffy little kitty cat?" Rocket hissed again, but was abruptly cut off by a heavy blow to her shoulders.

"Enough," Cillian snarled threateningly, lifting his free hand to rub his runny nose. "You're going to Blue." At which both girls began to protest so loudly that the men were forced to gag them with their shirtsleeves, for fear that the entire building would be awakened and come trooping downstairs, wondering what was going on. Amber's last thought as they dragged away was simple, wistful.

_I hope someone will remember me._


	7. We're All Insane Here

The door of the dreaded room was much like any other, being blonde and well polished with a shiny varnish. However, unlike the rest of entirety, it was thin and made of cherry wood; nothing like the thick pine barricades that enclosed all other rooms at Lennox House. A small golden plaque, centered meticulously upon the door at eye level, announced a string of meaningless titles that were supposedly related to Blue. However, in the girls' eyes, the only title that fit the asylum owner was one that they would never dare to speak aloud.

Cillian and Wilmarth, the two burly giants who flanked the now-nervous pair, were smiling with an air of cold satisfaction that could bode no good for anyone in the vicinity. Wilmarth, reputably the kinder of the two, wore a fear-inducing grim look of a schoolboy who sensed that he was about to be caught with his lunch pail concealed within the depths of his desk. Cillian rapped his broad knuckles upon the hard wood, still smiling frostily as he did so, and slowly pushed the door open. Wilmarth coughed loudly.

"What is it now, Cillian? Oh, you've got them – good. That will do; leave the girls to me," Blue said with an authorative air, lazily giving the two men a wave of dismissal. The door slammed shut, and Rocket and Amber saw that they were not alone. This sort of company gave Amber a horrible sinking feeling, and she knew at once that something was terribly wrong. Blondie was standing in a corner with her hair in her mouth, quite pale, and Baby Doll was huddled against the wall, sobbing shakily with her hands over her face. Sweet Pea slipped in through a side door, her hair damp from the newly falling rain and her face drained of color.

Rocket was so shocked that she couldn't even show a sign of surprise at her sister's reappearance besides a dumbfounded movement of her lips that was without sound.

"All right girls," Blue said quietly. "Why don't you sit down, and we'll have a little talk." Rocket and Amber complied, made nervous not by Blue's matter of fact tone, but by the appearance of the other three. Blondie let out a stifled sob, turning her face away from Blue and the rest, as Baby, leaning against the wall, gave up her struggle with shaky legs and slid to the floor despondently. The emotions of a certain wet-haired girl in the corner had been working to resolve a violent conflict between being angry or amused at Blue's antics; now there rested here an expression of disgust.

"You're crazy, Blue," Sweet Pea whispered, distaste and anxiety written all over her pretty face. And – was it possible? Did fear show there as well? Alarm was certainly one of Rocket's emotions, though she was working hard to hide it. Baby Doll was glued to the floor with fright and unease, and unlike Rocket, she was making no move to suppress it whatsoever.

"I don't think that I am, sweetheart," Blue crooned softly, danger simply dancing beyond the mask of his voice. Passing the revolted girl on his way over to Rocket and Baby Doll, he gave a strand of her rain-dampened hair a little tug. Swatting him irritably away, Sweet Pea backed warily into a corner. There was a moment of deeply contemplative silence, and then, with an abrupt swing, Blue came to lounge at the front of the desk before the two latecomers to the conversation.

"Here's the deal, girls," Blue bargained abruptly. "I have some work that I need to get done. Once I complete that work, I will be quite famous. I am naturally inclined to be a famous person . . . isn't that right, Amber?" he asked suddenly, shooting the question in the crying girl's direction. Amber, gulping in air hysterically, nodded furiously, having no other safe option to resort to. When Blue turned his gaze away from her, satisfied, she looked pleadingly from one girl to the other, as if begging forgiveness for siding with the devil.

"But I cannot complete these tasks alone," Blue continued with a lofty, falsely regretful air. "You five can help me with that." When the only response that he received was complete silence, his face hardened slightly. _But that's ridiculous, _Rocket thought angrily. _He can't possibly think that we would jump up and down at this news, crying, "Oh yes, Blue, we shall be glad to assist you!" _

"So what do you say, girls?" Blue asked quietly. "Are you in?" There was a moment of silence, and then Rocket started laughing. The rest watched in disbelief as Rocket giggled hysterically, practically rocking back and forth in her chair with mirth. Blue's skillfully unmoved expression slowly transformed to anger, and his black eyes grew hard and dangerous. With a loud _bang, _he slammed his fist down hard on the side of the desk.

"Silence!" he ordered, not shouting, but in a low tone of menace that was even worse than cussing. The girls winced as Rocket's laughing ceased immediately, all five secretly wishing that he would yell instead. Rocket bit her lip, regretting her unrestrained sense of humor at once. "If you refuse to help me," Blue said softly, "It will be all the worse for you." Abruptly he stood up straight, and crossing the room to a small table, he yanked out a drawer, snatched out several pieces of paper, and spread them out upon the desktop.

"Look at these," he commanded, leaning against the table on the palms of his hands. The girls gathered around the desk, staring at what proved to be a series of photographs, five in all. After a minute of confused searching for something out of the ordinary in the pictures, Sweet Pea looked up at Blue questioningly. Blue appeared to have been waiting for someone to do this, for he straightened up, and pointing at the portrait of an old woman in a rocking chair, he carefully explained.

"I have made a decision," he said smoothly, evenly. "It took me quite some time to make up my mind, but now I am convinced that I have done right. Instead of punishing _you _if something in your tasks goes amiss, your faults will be taken out on these people." His hand smoothed over the photographs as he spoke. And as soon as he spoke, the girls began to comprehend.

Several gasps filled the room as they recognized the people in the photographs. The grandmother in the rocking chair was clutched up by Blondie, held tightly to her lips; a tall man with dark eyes was dampened by Amber's tears. Rocket recognized her parents in one picture, and wondered if Blue knew that they were dead. Sweet Pea's eyes widened at the sight of a fourth photo, taken of Rocket when she was quite young. But it was the thirteen-year-old girl in the fifth picture, staring out of the photo with the blank, unseeing eyes, that unsettled Baby Doll the most; standing up slowly, she startled Blue by looking directly into his eyes.

"I know that you would not do this if they were not still alive," she whispered, her voice cracking with tears midsentence. She stood still for a moment, gulping down sobs as silent tears rolled down her cheeks. For a moment, it almost seemed as if she had complete control over herself, and was not planning upon saying anything to Blue, who she now loathed more than anyone in the world. And then she collapsed to the floor in a fit of hysterical cries.

"What have you done?" she screamed, "What have you done to them? Where are they? You're evil, yo – you're the devil. You've taken her, and you've hidden her away, and now I'll never find her again!" And with continued cries of _never_, Baby Doll cried harder than she ever had in her life. The other girls stared at her, wondering what could possibly have happened to make the little girl act this way. Baby Doll sobbed uncontrollably on the floor, still screaming insults at the tall man who was wearing the cold, self-satisfied smile.

"You see, girls?" Blue said, looking down with disgust at the withering girl at his feet, "This is what love does to you. Never learn to love anyone; we all have to die sometime, and it hurts too much to have the person you love taken away," he said, his tone hard and bitter. Then he turned away from the pitiful sight to glare at the portrait of a young woman that hung drearily upon the wall beside the fireplace.

And Rocket, looking sideways at him so as not to detect attention, could swear that she saw the shadowy hint of tears in his cold, unforgiving black eyes.


	8. Arcanum

**A/N: This whole thing is kind of crazy. I just got this wild idea to have this be a sort of Alice In Wonderland-type story. It's more psychological though; I'm mainly focusing on the feelings. If you think I should change anything, let me know.**

_It does not do to dwell on dreams, and forget to live._

It took several hours of coaxing, pleading, threatening, and forcing to restore calm to Baby Doll. Nearly out of her head with exhaustion, anger, and grief, besides the slowly worsening pain in her left ankle, Baby Doll wanted nothing more than to slide back into the dreamlike worlds that she was no accustomed to. But for the first time ever, she found this impossible. She tried a number of times to let go of everything, but every time she attempted a vacant stare she would be harassed into reality by Blue and the girls. Now she listened to the conversation with contempt.

"So, now that we've been bullied into completing these _tasks _for you, might I ask _just what in the hell are they?_" Sweet Pea wondered, wringing her hair out before the blazing fire. When the girls had been forced to accept that they were going to become temporary employees, Blue had allowed them to wander about the office doing whatever they pleased while he explained. The only thing that they were forbidden to do was to touch anything other than furniture.

"Certainly," Blue responded, so promptly that Sweet Pea was taken aback. The others were moderately surprised as well, having been expecting a strong and definite _no _from their sternest captor_. _"These missions are a series of little challenges that shouldn't be too difficult to manage. Since they are fairly mild, everyday things – most of them, at least – we'll have no way of knowing what they are until they are upon us. Is that clear?" Rocket, not buying his effort to downplay the difficulties in the least, had another question.

"Well if they're so easy to manage, and if they are things that we can expect any day of our lives, then why do you need us?" she inquired in a false tone of pleasantry, twirling her hair about her finger curiously. Blue found this question slightly more difficult to answer, for he thought diligently about his response for several impatient minutes before replying.

"Ah, but they are _not _everyday things, not for here at least," he added, when Rocket opened her mouth to protest. "This is a _very different _place that we are going to, and I expect you to deal with the new circumstances appropriately. Fail to do so, and your little photos in the flesh will suffer." Here there was a momentary lull in the conversation as Amber and Sweet Pea attempted to restrain Baby Doll, who had been quite angered by Blue's choice of words.

"And where is it that we're going, exactly?" Sweet Pea ventured to ask once the youngest of their number had been subdued once again. In answer to this question, Blue crossed the room to his bookshelf, and swiping Amber aside with a little wave, he pulled a book carefully from the shelf. Flipping through it several pages, he opened it to a well-worn place and began to read aloud from it.

"'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe. All mimsy were the borogoves, and the mome raths outgrabe. Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird and shun the frumious Bandersnatch." Here Blue paused, as if looking for approval, and then, finding no reaction handy, he continued in a monotone.

"He took his vorpal sword in hand; long time the manxome foe he sought – so rested he by the Tumtum tree, and stood a while in thought. And as in uffish thought he stood, the Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, came whiffling through the tulgey wood, and burbled as it came! One two, one two! And through and through the vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head, he went galumphing back. 'And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy! Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!' he chortled in his joy. 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe. All mimsy were the borogoves, and the mome raths outgrabe." Here Blue slammed the book shut, and with a satiated nod, he replaced it upon the shelf.

"And there you have it," he said stolidly. The girls looked at one another in confusion. Even Baby Doll stopped hiding her face for a moment to look about with an expression of complete and utter bewilderment. Blondie openly gaped in bafflement, and Amber and Sweet Pea merely shot each other glances of ridicule. Rocket, beginning to get an inkling of what was going on, backed as far away from Blue as she could, only to leap forward again in surprise, having scorched her pant legs in the fireplace.

"Blue," she queried innocently after Sweet Pea had wordlessly extinguished her pants, "Do you honestly mean to say that we're going there?" Blue hesitated, not wanting another laughing attack to seize the nineteen year old at his next words. He wanted them to believe him so that they would help him, but it was highly unlikely. Taking advantage of his pause, Blondie asked her own question.

"Going where, Rocket?" And Rocket silently retrieved the book that Blue had been reading out of. Handing it to Blondie, she tapped her finger on the green cloth cover where the curly letters were embossed in shiny gold. Mutely, Blondie read the title: Alice in Wonderland, and looked up with fright in her eyes.

It seemed to take hardly a second for the girls to gather in a tightly knit corner on the opposite side of the room – exempting senseless Baby Doll, of course. Each of the four eyed Blue with the wariness of one confronting the far side of insane. Could Blue, perhaps, being the owner of the asylum, have become a little insane himself? Blue raised his eyebrows at them calmly, and they whispered worriedly amongst themselves. There was a tense silence, and then Rocket's expression turned to fun.

"All right then, Blue," she said cheerfully, though still remaining in center of the little group. "Just how to you propose to get to Wonderland?" Blue cracked a smile that their present state of mind dubbed as crazed, but it truth was merely prompted by amusement. The entire situation was swiftly turning into a game. Blue nodded his head at the little girl still sitting unreachable in the center of the room.

"Why don't you ask Baby Doll? I'm sure she'll know," he suggested mildly, sitting down again in his green leather armchair. The four young women held a brief, whispered conference before propelling Rocket out of the bunch like a bumblebee spit out by a surprised cat. Rocket padded her way across the green, wall-to-wall carpet, tripping now and then over a loose thread intent upon ensnaring her. She approached Baby Doll with a guarded face, and crouched down so that the two were eye level.

"Baby Doll," she whispered, feeling quite stupid, "Do you know the way to Wonderland?" Baby Doll, who had watched the proceedings with mingled interest and perplexity, was jerked back to her senses by the name of the imaginary place. She studied Rocket's face for a moment, scrutinizing her square features, her amused smile, and her olive-green eyes. She didn't know what to answer; she searched her thoughts for any knowledge she had of Wonderland.

Before her, in the cold mist of darkness, there emerged a vision. It was not the prophetic sort of vision, but a dim murky haze of pictures, the remnants of shadowy memories and dreams. From deep within the fog, hazy memories began to take form. A white rabbit bounded across a gloomy meadow. A book flew open to an illustration of a deck of cards. A flash of light ensued, and seven figures were seen vanishing into thin air, to be replaced moments later by a group of bewildered-looking creatures. A fat woman in a red dress sauntered across a well-clipped lawn to play a game with birds. Then Baby Doll snapped back to attention.

"Yes," she whispered, her eyes blank, her expression unmoving. Something in her face seemed to show that she was not lying, and the occupants of the room looked on with interest. Some, however, were merely skeptical. Wonderland was a fictional book setting – how on earth could Baby Doll possibly know anything about it? Rocket was about to respond, but then Sweet Pea cut in, stepping forward to put a hand on Rocket's shoulder as she glared at Blue angrily.

"That's enough. Do you have any idea how foolish you look? You're asking for the advice of a half-mad teenage girl whose mind is completely unstable, who hasn't slept properly for a matter of days, and who, to be prudent, is completely illiterate and knows nothing about this _stupid _book whatsoever." Her face contorted with fury, Sweet Pea's eyes sparkled angrily like cut diamonds. Rocket had rarely seen her this worked up. She spit out her words furiously, like a ferocious kitten, direction most of them at Blue and the rest of them at Baby Doll.

"I absolutely refuse to let this go any further; we've been bullied and manipulated for long enough. Come Rocket – we're going home!" And seizing her sister firmly by the wrist, she began to drag her in the direction of the door. Here Blue spoke at last, calmly in tone, but Rocket could see the cold fury in his eyes.

"Home?" he said quietly, skeptically. "You have no home. There is nowhere for you to go." The tightening of his lips signaled an outburst; the soft rage in his voice was reaching the danger point. Sweet Pea yanked Rocket halfway across the room by sheer brute force, hissing and spitting at Blue in a way that no one had ever seen her use before.

"I don't care, anywhere's better than here!" At last Blue exploded, striding across the room in a matter of seconds to block the doorway with his body while he shouted at both girls at once. Rocket broke free of her sister and cowered in a corner, leaving Sweet Pea alone to defend herself. Not a very brave move on the part of one who had once done anything for her family, but she had sufficient reasons for backing away.

_"Didn't you hear me, girl? You have nowhere to go! I took you both in out of pity alone when no one else would! Who wanted two poor, lying, thieving, cheating little orphans on their hands? I certainly didn't! I took you in because I knew what it was like to be in your shoes! I rescued you both and cared for you like daughters for eleven years, and now you walk out without so much as a thank you? That's pretty poor repayment!"_ His face was slowly turning a nasty purplish hue, and he nearly spit the words out of his ungrateful mouth. He was nowhere near finished yet.

_"I fed you, I clothed you, I even gave you work! I gave you both privileges that the other girls and patients here would die for! I even let you go outside, goddam it!" _He paused for breath, breathing heavily now. Sweet Pea's face was quite frightened as he continued. _"I gave you both a home, I took care of you, and still that wasn't enough! Oh no, your mere, miserable, sorry lives weren't enough for you, were they? You had to have more, always more, and I'm sick of it! I've had enough whining and complaining from both of you; your sister's bad enough, but you! You ungrateful little bitch! I've given you more than you could ever hope for, and still you beg for more! There are reasons you don't get them, little girl, you have to work for them! I've had enough with stupid children, especially you girls! Boys, perhaps, I can understand, but girls!" _Rocket and the other girls noticed that Sweet Pea's strength was finally draining from her; she was gripping the wall tightly, and beginning to slide down it. She had turned her face away from Blue now, and her shoulders were shuddering. But Blue was relentless; he went on, though his voice had by now calmed back down to soft, angry fury.

"I know exactly what you want, missy," he said, low, his tone still dangerous. In fact, it had toned down to more of a crooning murmur as he spoke into her ear, gripping her shoulders in what appeared to be a gentle grasp, but was really digging his fingers into her flesh so hard she felt it bruise. "I know what's in your heart. You want love, that's what you want. You want to be loved by more than just your sister. Oh, so many sweet movies you've seen, so many times you've read that raggedy old book, and it's just exactly what you're looking for." Now, his voice suddenly turned normal again, almost as if the outburst had never happened.

"You want to live in a fairy tale," he told her, frowning slightly. "Not the real world. You don't want to be in love, you want to be in love in a book, because in real life, love _hurts, _my dear little girl, it's _pain. _Nothing about it is easy, and that's not what you want. I've tried to give it to you in a way that hurts less, because I know what it feels like, but you won't take it. You push me away every time I get close to you, because you don't trust me. You think I'm a monster, little girl, but do you know what? I'm not, not anymore than you are, at least. It's that simple, you know. I'm just a man, and you're just a little girl who wants to be loved. It's the oldest story in the world, my dear little girl, and there's nothing monstrous about it. I'm not the issue, dear child; the only problem here is you."

And in that moment, the other three girls learned more about the two sisters than they ever would again. Blue's tongue, let loose to wreak havoc after more than a decade of silent suffering, had allowed them virtual insight into the pair's lives. Amber and Blondie stared wide-eyed, shocked, at Rocket as Baby Doll lifted her head slightly to watch, though her expression remained sullen and sulky. They all watched Sweet Pea.

Her eyes were wide, her face more shocked than anyone's. She was shaking uncontrollably, biting her lips so hard that they bled onto her tongue. The blood drained slowly from her face, leaving her eyes bright and clear, standing out well in her pale white face. For a moment, it almost seemed as if she were about to scream, or shout, or even throw something. But then, for the first time ever, Sweet Pea burst into tears.

Rocket immediately moved to her sister's side, casting Blue looks of such intense loathing that anyone else would have quickly recoiled. Sweet Pea buried her face in her hands, sobbing uncontrollably, and clutched her locket despairingly. Amber and Blondie simply stared at one another bewilderedly. For Baby Doll, this scene was of utmost confusion; the girl standing with tears streaming down her cheeks, the man with the disgusted face, and the photographs of familiar people strewn upon the desk . . .

Rocket was patting Sweet Pea on the back, not minding the tears now decorating her wrist like a bracelet of wet diamonds. She whispered soothingly to her, throwing Blue a nasty look every few seconds in order to reinforce the point she was attempting to make clear. At last Sweet Pea lifted her head enough so that they could see her face. Her eyes were glittering with unshed tears, fierceness and determination glowing in every feature. At the sight of this new and yet to be unleashed ferocity, even Rocket took a step back. When Sweet Pea spoke, her voice was low and controlled, though a wild light shone in her movements and her expression.

"Scream at me all you like, Blue," she said smoothly, her voice calm and level. Rocket had never heard her speak so flatly and without emotion. "But I'm through. I'm not taking this any longer, and I won't let Rocket suffer through it either. We're leaving, and we're leaving now. Have us followed if you wish, but let it be known that anyone who tries to get in our way will take every blow that you are intended to receive. If you insist upon dragging me back here, you can drag all you want. I would rather die than return to this hell." And with that, she spun around abruptly, grasped Rocket's hand tightly in her own, cast the others a brief nod and Baby Doll and grimace, and swept aloofly from the room, leaving a cold sort of silence behind.

WWWWW

Sweet Pea and Rocket strode swiftly down the elaborate maze of velvet-lined corridors, paying no heed whatsoever to the questions and comments of the passerby. Sweet Pea moved so rapidly that Rocket had a difficult time keeping pace; she often stumbled along in the background. Reaching the spiraling stone staircase that led up to the third floor dormitories, Sweet Pea's speed increased, and she climbed the stairs two at a time, Rocket blundering foolishly behind. They were halfway up to the third floor when a small cry reached their ears.

"Take me with you!" The two halted so suddenly that they were in danger of falling down the stairs. Spinning around quickly, Sweet Pea nearly sent Rocket plummeting all the way to the first floor. Two pairs of haughty green eyes came to rest upon a slight figure standing halfway down the flight of narrow marble steps. Baby Doll stood still with both feet on one step, one hand pressed against the wall and the other stuffed hastily into her mouth, as if she did not quite know what she had said and had attempted to bite the words back in as soon as they came.

"I can't stand it here!" she whispered despairingly, speaking solely to Rocket, whom she had gradually learned to trust. "Take me with you, get me out of this place!" When neither girl responded for shock, she seemed to take it that they were rejecting her plea, and her tone swiftly turned desperate. "Please! I won't be any bother," she pleaded hopefully, her voice escalating in pitch with each appeal in succession. "I'll do what I'm told, and I won't make any noise! I'll try to work hard if you need me to, really I will!"

Still, neither Rocket nor Sweet Pea spoke. Baby Doll looked desperately from one girl to the other, hoping for a reasonable response. Even a sharp, clear, resounding _no _would have been better than the silence in which she found herself entangled. Rocket looked at her older sister and raised one eyebrow questioningly; Sweet Pea shook her head fiercely, but Rocket nodded with equal vigor. Sweet Pea bit her lips into a thin line, warning Rocket with her eyes to back down. However, with a sister just as stubborn, it was not easy to win, and they soon found themselves at a stalemate.

Rocket climbed a few steps up to speak quietly to Sweet Pea. All that Baby Doll could hear was a sequence of argumentative whispers, followed by anxious, contemplative glances flung hastily in her direction. She watched the proceedings worriedly, hoping against hope that she would be allowed to accompany the two runaways. Several times, the whispers almost morphed into normal tones, and she caught a few words.

"Just a child, Rocket . . . don't want . . . caught . . . give us away . . ." the conversation went on for several minutes, by which time Baby Doll was so restless that she jumped a foot in the air when Rocket finally addressed her. Before Rocket even spoke, Baby Doll was filled with hope, for Sweet Pea's eyes were sullen and resentful, and she had crossed her arms over her chest defiantly. It looked as if she had lost the argument.

"All right, Baby Doll, you can come with us," Rocket consented, "but on one condition; hold yourself together as well as you can, okay? I know that it's a lot to ask of you, but we can't get dragged back here. So if you lose yourself once and it puts us in danger, whether intentionally or not, you'll have to come back, all right?" It was a tough bargain for Baby Doll to keep. Rocket could see her struggling with it, chewing her tongue thoughtfully, her eyes flashing from one side of the stairwell to another. But at last she nodded, slowly, to be sure, but it was an agreement nevertheless. Sweet Pea groaned softly.

"Rocket, she's insane; she's here for a reason. If you asked all of these people whether or not they wanted to leave, you can bet that they would say yes, but they're lost-minded fools, the lot of them. Take my advice, and leave her here so that she can go bats alone. She's nuts enough already without _you _guiding her around." Rocket swiftly hushed Sweet Pea, spinning about so rapidly that she tottered dangerously on the step. A brief conversation was held between the gaze of the two girls, after which they both turned to look at Baby Doll. Rocket held out her hand, and Baby Doll took it timidly.

"All right then; we're just going to get our stuff and then we're leaving. You have to stick close to me on the way out, okay?" Rocket said, not unkindly, as they continued up the winding staircase. Upon arriving at their room, the older girls left Baby Doll standing alone in the doorway as they hurriedly gathered their possessions. Having little to carry, it all fit easily into one small suitcase. Sweet Pea double-checked the bag for her book, having no other item in the world to call her own.

Skittering nervously back over to the door, Rocket and Sweet Pea eyed each other over Baby Doll's head. They watched each other closely for a moment before Rocket jerked her head in a non-committal fashion, and Sweet Pea nodded back. Then Rocket took Baby Doll's hand, and they were flying.

They clattered noisily down the stairs, Baby Doll struggling to keep up on her seldom-used legs. Twice, the stairs sank into water in her vision, and she bit back a cry of fright. But at last they reached the bottom, unblemished by wetness and sea creatures unknown. They flew through the halls, walking swifter than Baby Doll could ever remember having done. It seemed at first that they would be permitted to exit the building without protest, but when they at last reached the towering front doors, they found an army before them in the form of several tall men, including Blue.

"So now you're kidnapping innocent little girls as well?" Blue asked haughtily, laughing slightly as he stepped forward. A tall man beside him, with soft brown hair that Rocket found vaguely familiar, twitched slightly. "Now you're taking not only two, but five patients away from me?" Even Baby Doll could do the math, and it didn't add up. Quickly, Sweet Pea and Rocket spun around. This fact registered with Baby Doll a second later and hastily imitated them, anxious to appear cognizant, though the action was a little too late to appear convincing. Behind them stood Amber and Blondie, suitcases at the ready. Sweet Pea let out a hissing stream of mixed prayers and profanities.

"Just what in the . . .?" she began to ask, but Rocket swiftly hushed her, whispering that they would talk about it later. Blue took another step forward, this time in Sweet Pea's direction. The man in the brown velvet suit twitched slightly again, his hand jerked towards his seemingly empty pocket. Rocket scrutinized him for a moment, and then looked up to find that he was watching her. She blushed, and hurriedly looked away. Meanwhile, Sweet Pea had finally found her voice.

"They're not patients," she hissed loathingly. "They're prisoners. Prisoners in the hell you've designed to experiment with us and test our limits. You've pushed me to the edge, Blue, but you'll find that I'm not going to fall." Her eyes were alight with fire and fury. There was a moment of heavy silence, in which everyone watched each other warily, and then Blue stepped forward.

Amber let out a shriek as his hand lashed out. He hit Sweet Pea so hard that she stumbled backwards, crying out sharply. She tripped over a small brown suitcase and would have fallen had it not been for Blondie's speedy rescue. It took her a moment or so to recover her balance, during which Blue had successfully managed to barricade the front doors. He loomed tall over Sweet Pea as she stood still, trembling, and spoke in a voice so quiet that Baby Doll could barely hear it.

"You'll come with me," he said softly, "or you'll die."


	9. Always

**A/N: This is going to be a short one, I'm sorry. It might be awhile before I get back to you guys, but thank you so much for all of your support!**

"Goddam son of a bitch!" Sweet Pea slammed her fists furiously against the door of the sealed chamber. "Why can't he just leave us alone?" She resumed her manic pacing of the length of the room, pausing after each round to deliver a well-aimed, vicious kick at the door. Contrary to being anxious as well, Rocket was merely vaguely apprehensive that she would break her toe.

"Sweet Pea, calm down," Rocket drawled wearily from the corner where she leaned against the wall, her overlarge feet sticking straight out in front of her. The crimson and gold carpet was comfortable, and she was beginning to lose interest in their predicament and was in the process of contemplating the plausibility of a nap. "Although it's none of my concern. You'll only make things worse for us, go ahead, why don't you?" Sweet Pea punched the door forcefully again with a loud _uh_ of anger and frustration, so hard that she bruised her knuckles, and turned back to face Rocket with a challenging expression.

"Oh yeah, little sister? All right, tell me; what else can he do to me, huh? What?" she demanded, her expression taunting, breathing heavily with infuriation; Rocket had never before seen her so aggravated. While the others had given up hours ago and were now sitting wearily on the floor, Sweet Pea was continuing to pace the small room up and down angrily, growling in frustration and fury. Her hair had long since become lank and was hanging lifeless, and her dull green dress was limp against her skin.

"Oh, I don't know," Rocket mocked softly, in an annoying sing-song tone. "Maybe . . . take you again?" Rocket's words stopped Sweet Pea short. She halted mid-step in the middle of her round, directly before the door, as the color slowly drained from her face. Her face went chalk-white, and her jade eyes grew wide and frightened. She gripped the doorknob slightly for support, her legs suddenly unable to hold up the rest of her body.

"No," she whispered, a new, terrified light in her eyes. "He wouldn't dare." Rocket nodded her head slowly, grimly. She felt a sad sort of smile taking hold of her lips, one of sympathy rather than taunt. Sweet Pea dropped into a helpless heap where she stood, closing her eyes so that tears leaked out from underneath her eyelids. Their quarrel was, apparently, forgiven and forgotten. Meanwhile, Amber was confused.

"Huh?" she asked, puzzled. "What do you mean, 'take her'? Do you mean . . .?" she trailed off fearfully, afraid to complete her question, as Rocket nodded her head.

"Didn't you know?" she asked sadly. "Thanks what Blue does to girls when they don't do what he says. She's been hurt, a lot; you have no idea." Amber's eyes widened in shock and disgust as she stared at Sweet Pea, whose cheeks were streaked with pained tears of grief.

"And - he's been doing that to you - for all these years?" she asked at last, tentatively. Sweet Pea nodded, wiping her eyes with the back of a grimy hand.

"Forever?" Amber pressed again, awed. This time, it was Rocket who answered for her sister, as Sweet Pea had collapsed into a huddle of broken sobs. Her face was tight and grim, fury etched into every finely-sculpted line of her boyish features. Amber had never seen her eyes filled with so much coldness.

"Always."


	10. The Girl From Nowhere

The Girl From Nowhere

"Don't let them take me away! Alice, I want to stay with you!"

In the cold, dark room, Ariana sought her older sister's hand, frightened by her own voice so loud in the stillness. Her fingers hunted for it in the darkness, batting at the gloom until they found a friendly heat. Her grip closed around the warmth, squeezing tight as she searched for reassurance. Alice clasped the little hand tightly in both of her own.

"It's all right, sweetie," she murmured soothingly, silently. "I'm right here." Ariana, though she could hear her sister's voice through the cold air, trembled. Even with a member of her small family so near her surroundings felt chilled and unfriendly. It was not an unfamiliar feeling by now; years of this sort of atmosphere had gone by without respite. But that did not mean that she particularly enjoyed it.

She could barely remember life with the rest of her family. She knew that she had once had a mother and a father, but she had them no more. After all, what was the object of remembrance when one had no visual recollections with which to reminisce? She saw no reason for that, even if she _could _remember anything. Which she didn't, in any case, so there was nothing worth arguing about.

"Alice Mary Cornish, born October first, is that right?" The unexpected voice startled the little girl. Unconscious of her actions, she jumped backwards in fright. The reward for her fear was a dull, throbbing pain in her temple; she had hurled herself against a wall. Her head pounded uncomfortably where she had hit it.

"Yes," Alice answered softly in the barely audible voice that she had worked so hard to acquire, pulling Ariana forward to stand again beside her. Ariana moaned, rubbing the tender spot above her right eyebrow. Shivering, she allowed her aching eyes a few, rare blinks. She could feel the tension emitting from her sister's body, and did her best to control herself.

This endeavor failed when a strange hand, cold and smooth, touched her cheek. She wrenched away once more, letting out a little cry, and stood in the back corner of the little room, her eyes wide open and unseeing. The coldness crept over her again when the comforting hand vanished, and she hugged her arms to her chest, shuddering. A salty wetness that could only be tears seeped from the corners of her unused eyes.

Confusion came from across the small chamber. The emotion, radiating from an unfamiliar source, was mingled with another, more perceptible mood. Ariana understood Alice, having known her for her entire life; this was more than she could say for anyone else. She was not accustomed to reading the emotions of strangers, and the possibility of doing such a thing frightened her. But it was as instinctive, as unstoppable, as any impulse. It was how she learned about people, how she decided whether or not she could trust them.

"What's wrong with that one?" the strange voice spoke again, puzzled. Alice's sigh was the loudest sound that Ariana had ever heard. Quietly, patiently, she repeated the same explanation that she had been giving for years. The stranger listened with interest.

"She's my little sister, Ariana," Alice explained. "She can't see. She sees things by feeling them; your hand startled her. She's not used to strangers touching her." The words brought back thousands of memories of predicaments such as this. Ten, twenty, fifty times had Alice spoken of the fault found in Ariana's eyes.

But what, Ariana wondered, was wrong? To her, seeing meant becoming familiar with someone, knowing how he or she spoke, moved, breathed, and even how they _smelled. _She had but four senses to rely upon; hence she used each one as though it was to be her last day of being able to do so. Or at least, it appeared as though there were four; Ariana used another sense as well, but as they had found no one else who felt it, she and Alice never spoke of it. She did not know what _seeing _meant in the way that Alice described it.

She recalled dimly the first time that Alice had attempted to tell her about sight. The scene of the conversation had been a place small and sunny, warmed with gentle sunlight. The light, casual twittering of birds had filled her ears, mixing with the scent of flowers in a muddling way. She had sat perfectly still, not daring to move lest she fall into the hands of something sinister.

"There is something here called color," Alice had said. "There is purple, red, yellow, blue, green – so many colors that it would be impossible to name them all. Everything has color; the birds, the grass, the sky, the flowers; even _you. _There is nothing lacking it in this world. Without it, the world would be so . . ." but then she had left her sentence unfinished, remembering that the world of the person sitting beside her had no color at all.

Looking around the small meadow, she had pondered a way to make her sister perceive the thing that is known to all who see it and incomprehensible to all who don't. Gazing about her in search of an answer, her eyes had fallen upon a dark, brilliantly red pansy that grew wild only feet away. She had plucked it with deft fingers and pressed it into Ariana's open palm.

"This is flower is red," she had told her. "It is only one of many things like it." Ariana's expert hands had meticulously examined the specimen, carefully feeling the shape of it, the texture, and trying urgently to feel that thing that her sister called _color. _If color truly existed, then why couldn't she feel it? Alice said that it was something you saw, but she _was_ seeing. _Feeling _was seeing.

"What does it feel like?" she had asked anxiously, hoping for a hint as to how she could better discover the strange novelty. But Alice had only laughed, though somewhat sadly, as she realized that explaining color to a blind person was nearly as pointless as setting up a pile of sandbags to guard against a tsunami.

"Color isn't something you can feel, sweetie," she had clarified, using her sad tone gently; in the way she would speak to a balky horse. "You have to have eyes to know what color is." Ariana had tried hard to understand, but the subject had been beyond her comprehension; it had merely given her a helpless feeling of confusion.

She had eyes, didn't she? So if she had eyes, then where was color? She had never understood people when they had said that her eyes did not work. If they didn't work, then what was the matter with them? And what did other people, people with _working _eyes, have that she didn't have?

To her, eyes – as well as sight and everything else that came along with it – was darkness. Or at least, it wasn't _seeing, _not in the same way that her hands saw. People had apologized to her about the dark world that she lived in, but what did dark mean, anyway? And besides, there was no need to feel sorry for her; she wasn't missing anything, was she? _No_, Ariana had thought decidedly, _I am not any different from them._

A question brought Ariana back to reality. It was the strange woman's voice again, the voice that she now associated with that cold, dry hand on her cheek. Why had this person touched her? Was she trying to _learn, _to _see, _in the same way that Ariana saw? If this were true, then she would forgive the nameless old lady, but if she had merely touched her for the sake of doing so, then she was despicable – at least in Ariana's eyes.

"How old is she?" the feasibly forgivable lady inquired. Alice's easy voice came through the unknown, comforting Ariana. For a moment, when the woman had first spoken, it had been as if Alice had suddenly disappeared. For why would Alice allow someone to touch her? Would she ever have permitted a stranger to speak?

"Ask her the question." Alice continued to speak calmly despite Ariana's tremendous fear of the woman. "She can speak. She will answer as long as you don't stand too close." With her lips forming a small noise of agreement, the woman turned to the small, shaking girl who had backed into the corner. Ariana's sensitive ears followed the movements of the woman, listening to be sure that she was safe. The woman repeated the inquiry.

"How old are you, Ariana?" she queried in a light, pleasant tone. Ariana hesitated, attempting first to uncover the motivation hidden behind the question before she responded. The voice was friendly enough, with no clear evidence of hostility. But still, it was best not to trust anyone but Alice. Ariana had lived knowing that there was only one person in the world who could be trusted, and she was not about to disregard this knowledge.

"_Ari, sweetie, answer her,"_ Alice encouraged in their language, the only one that Ariana could easily understand. As it was the only way of communication they had known until they first went to school, they still spoke it when only to each other. It was the easiest way for them. Never had it occurred to either of them that they had no idea what the language was called.

Ariana, however, was not to be persuaded nor sweet-talked into anything that she had not yet made up her mind about. She would come to a decision in her own good time, and there was hardly a thing they could do about it. Besides, Alice wasn't the type to force the last remaining member of her family into anything.

"Eleven," she answered eventually, with much effort behind the audible word, yielding but reserved nevertheless. Perhaps, if she did not give too much away, then no one would remember that the sisters were to be separated. It had happened too many times, each time more painful than the last. Ariana's greatest fear was losing her sister, without whom there would be no way to communicate intelligently with the outside world.

Ariana was surprised when there was no further discussion regarding her age. Often, in such establishments, a loud, false sigh of regret would follow the answer to the question of her maturity. Instead of this fabrication, Ariana was surprised when her ears notified her of the thoughtfulness issuing from the opposite corner. Then there was a low murmuring similar to the cooing of a dove.

Three voices were suddenly to be heard. The latest addition, Ariana realized with a twinge of fright, had not entered the room recently, but been present throughout the entirety of the solemn conversation. If this person had been standing unnoticed nearby, then how many more such shadows existed? Perhaps she was nearly touching one.

Ariana flinched away from emptiness, her blank eyes turning instinctively to her right to "see" what was there. She quavered, tensed to run as she begged her ears for answers. She could hear the low voices, the woman's being the loudest, the overtone, practically extinguishing the murmured speech of the shadow and the ethereal, virtually nonexistent communication that her older sister used. Alice's voice was never truly there, somehow.

A light tread approached her; Ariana recognized the quiet footsteps of her sister. Then the footfall came to a halt, and Ariana held out her hand. She felt the air quiver and vibrate as Alice reached for her and became her guide once more. She crouched down till their faces were level and spoke, the blank black eyes staring into the clear blue ones.

"Ari, I just talked with Mrs. Hanley," she said in her usual gentle tone. "They're not going to separate us this time; we're going to room three hundred and twelve. Mrs. Hanley said we should go there because you may have a better chance of making friends; there's another girl your age that can't see."

There it was again, the implication of her blindness. Ariana did not understand it. Her unspoken question abruptly threatened to become powerful. _Why do people say I'm blind? _Perhaps this other girl would have knowledge on the subject. Surely she would. After all, with the same _confusion _in her life, wouldn't she have the same _questions? _

"Alicia, Ariana, follow me please," summoned the woman titled Mrs. Hanley. Ariana felt Alice go stiff; she hated being called by her given name. Alicia, she said, was much too like something from a storybook. Someone named Alicia would never be remembered. She hated not being remembered.

Alice stood up straight and began to follow Mrs. Hanley, towing Ariana by the hand. Years ago, when Ariana was just a baby, their mother had told Alice that she must be Ariana's eyes. Alice had complied, barely four at the time, and fulfilled her duty wholeheartedly. Never without a hand to cling to, Ariana had not yet realized that she was missing something.

"Ari, there's a long hallway here, and nothing in the way. I'm going to let going go of your hand,"Alice said a minute later, quietly drawing her hand from Ariana's strong clutch. The air felt cold without it. However, innocently agreeable, Ariana let her go without complaint, and stretched her hand out to find a wall. When her fingers found the silkily polished wooden panels, she walked at quite a normal pace, using the wall as a guide.

"I don't know if that's a good idea," Mrs. Hanley said dubiously, but Alice waved her away, explaining that they had grown up in farmland, and that Ariana had often wandered alone in the vast fields and found her way back home each time with ease. Ariana listened proudly, and felt Mrs. Hanley's tight, anxious gaze fall upon her once or twice, checking to be sure that she was not lost.

The foursome proceeded in silence, treading lightly down the hall as rain beat upon the roof three stories above. Ariana could hear it well, and smiled to herself. She loved rain. It was her pleasure to run in it, laughing and giggling shrilly.

At a place where the hallway curved, Ariana began to walk slowly and deliberately – and unknowingly – in the direction of the open window. Then she heard Alice snap her fingers. It was a signal they had set up, the snapping, to ensure that Ariana never ran into anything dangerous. If she was about to fall or hit something, Alice would snap, and Ariana would immediately stop, standing perfectly still right where she was.

"To your left, Ari," Alice said softly. Her voice echoed in Ariana's head, bouncing off the corners of her skull. She responded in the same quiet tone, wondering, not for the first time, why it was so difficult for them to speak loudly. She heard no other voices like their own, and Alice said the same. Where, then, had they learned to speak this way?

"How did she know which way to turn?" Mrs. Hanley asked; she had not heard Alice speak. Alice's breath caught, and Ariana stood perfectly still. Alice whispered softly that she didn't know. It was always the sort of question that they dreaded. Even though they spoke aloud, strangers didn't appear to notice what they were saying – and they wished to keep it that way. They didn't want anyone to know what they were talking about. Ariana waited with bated breath, hoping against hope that the strangers would find Alice's answer satisfactory. To the great relief of both young girls, it appeared to be so.

"We're going upstairs now, children," Mrs. Hanley's world-weary voice notified them several minutes later. "James will be much obliged to carry you, Ariana." Alice coughed, and Ariana stopped short, indignant. Oh, the terrible assumptions of them all! Why did people insist that she was handicapped in so many ways? She could walk, certainly!

"That won't be necessary," Alice said, rather stiffly. "Ariana is perfectly capable of climbing stairs of her own accord. It took several months to teach her how, but now it is as easy for her as it is for anyone else." That was true, Ariana realized with a start. It _had _taken her a succession of long, tedious months to gain the knowledge of staircases, but now she was fully equipped for the job. The hardest part of learning, she recalled, had been the differences that set stairways apart from one another.

This stairway, she contemplated, beginning to climb, was steeper and narrower than the previous set of steps that she had been forced to climb. Those last ones had been marble, and quite wide, with plenty of space for feet larger than Ariana's. These were wooden and creaky, and left little room for her toes to rest upon each moaning step. She nearly stumbled once, but caught herself before her clumsy feet could betray her weakness.

The stairs took a sharp right turn at one point, and Ariana would have hit it had she not been forewarned. Only a few more steps remained, and Ariana was relieved when they at last reached the landing. More tedious plodding along the corridor followed, one left turn, and then they were told to stop. Ariana halted in the middle of the hall and stood waiting, expectant.

A key was pushed into a lock and yanked about several times before a firm hand grasped the doorknob and pushed the door wide open. It was an open space, moderately large and interrupted here and there by an object whose size Ariana could not quite grasp. She could sense sunlight coming in from three sides, and knew that the rainstorm had ended. The solemn drip, drip of leftover raindrops could be heard falling down the drainpipe forward and to her right.

She could also hear voices. They were whispered voices, gossipy and confident. She sensed many eyes upon her. With her abnormally acute hearing, Ariana was able to distinguish each voice from the confusing din, if only she focused hard enough on it. There were quiet ones, loud ones, low ones and squeaky ones. In her way, she could also sense their personalities through their tones.

There, that one over there was the sullen type, sulky and unwilling to make friends. The one in the corner on the left hand side was shy, but friendly and willing to speak. That one would be an object of interest to seek out later, but for now she had no intention of going anywhere. She shivered, staying close to Alice.

Alice led her over to a small bed on the opposite side of the room. Ariana sat down on it, feeling how uncomfortable it was. She stretched her fingers out to find a small bedside table next to it, topped with a clock, a lamp, and a water glass. The window, wet and foggy, backed up against the iron bedstead. She patted the rough fibers of the bed pillow, the slightly softer ones of the sheets, and then she hesitated, turning towards her invisible sister with a curious expression on her petite, young face.

"Where are we?" Ah. Well, that always was the question, wasn't it? Ariana could feel Alice hesitate as she decided whether or not to enlighten the little girl. For a split second, Ari was almost convinced that her sister had decided against it, and she trembled. Yet a moment later, thankfully, Alice began to answer.

"We're in London, Ari," she began, waving her arms around emphatically as she painted invisible pictures with her words. "On the south end, near the docks. It's very rainy here, as you could hear before. We're in an orphan asylum again – Mrs. Hanley runs it, along with another man whose name I don't yet know. It should be better here than the last place, Ari . . . but I don't know how long we'll stay." Ariana's lip quivered, and she bit it harshly to pull back tears.

"Will we have to stay forever, Alice?" she asked tentatively, not sure she wanted to hear the answer. Alice squeezed her hand comfortingly, drawing her into her cold, lanky arms.

"Oh, no, Ari," she whispered, her lips pressed against the younger girl's head. "We might have to stay here for a very long time, but not forever." Ariana nodded, unseeing eyes wide and solemn.

"Not forever," she repeated soberly. "No, never forever."


End file.
